


Reevaluation

by csThor



Series: DonoSlane Excursions [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Republic Era - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole, Star Wars Legends: X-wing Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, Myn's family, sorting out the mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-10 16:11:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 34,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15952907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/csThor/pseuds/csThor
Summary: At the end of X-Wing : Solo Command a certain Kirney Slane sent a holo to Lieutenant Myn Donos, New Republic Starfighter Command. This is my take on how they met again ...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of my "DonoSlane Excursions" fics. It was written almost 15 years ago, before Aaron Allston released his last X-Wing book "Mercy Kill".

#  Reevaluation

*** * ***

 

_"Dear passengers! We have just received landing clearance for Coronet Central Spaceport and will touch down in twenty minutes. We would like to thank you for choosing CoreFlight Spacelines and wish you a nice stay on Corellia. Please make sure you bring along your luggage and keep your documents ready for inspection by the Corellian Customs Agency. Thank you!"_

Donos looked up from the issue of _The_ _Coronet Tribune_ he'd been reading and threw a glance at the blueish ball of his home planet through the tiny window. He hadn't been home for years. A swarm of memories fluttered through his mind, some belonging to the carefree childhood he'd had in a small suburb of the capital, some to the confusing years of adolescence and some to the four years he'd given to the Corellian Forces.  
He sighed quietly and made a conscious effort to suppress the images. This was not the time to dwell on the past. He could do that after passing Corellian Customs, not now.

Thinking of the passport controls brought up a new bout of insecurity, a feeling he'd become all too familiar with over the past few days. Being here, flying into Corellia … it all felt  _alien_ to him. Not that returning to his home was an unpleasant sensation, it wasn't. It was more the  _How_ and the  _Why_ of this trip that left him dithering inwardly.  
Throughout his life he'd been more considerate than spontaneous. His father had had a long career as Officer of the Corellian Defense Forces. Being a considerate and quiet man himself he'd instilled the same sense for planning and careful consideration in his only son. Myn could remember his father gently lecturing him.

_Being spontaneous is a good thing, son. Never give up on spontaneity but don't let it rule your life. By planning ahead you can avoid having to improvise._

He squashed the smile forming on his lips and put on his habitual Sabacc face. He wondered briefly what his father would think of this very trip. It was anything but planned, he hadn't thought it through at all. In a military sense he was practically blundering into enemy territory without having any idea what to expect, what he would do and how he would get out again. He hadn't spent days and nights considering his options – he had acted. Being this spontaneous was alien to him, but on some basic level it felt right, too.

Three days ago the woman who had been Gara the enemy, Lara the friend and who was now Kirney Slane had managed to shake up his already confusing life. She'd shaken him up thoroughly, indeed. He hadn't seen her for weeks, but somehow she'd managed to infiltrate every dream and nightmare he'd had ever since – either teasing him with what could have been or shocking him to death with what had happened. The steady up and down of dreams mirrored the confusion within in his heart. Myn felt himself torn between his romantic interest in Lara and the nagging voice reminding him of what Gara had done.  
He'd already come to terms with never seeing her again. She'd told him as much in the message she'd managed to send him. Even though a part of him had revolted against the idea he'd heard the determination in her voice to bring down Zsinj even at the cost of her own life. Her death at Selaggis had seemingly drawn a final line under that chapter of his life. He'd sworn not to forget about her until the day he died, but he hadn't wanted to cling to her memory wondering what might have been. He'd rid himself of one false deity, he would not slip back into old habits by taking on a new one. He owed it to his fallen comrades, to the Wraiths, to Antilles … And last but not least he owed it to himself. But then Clink had shown him a strange holo coming from Corellia.

_"Hello Myn. It's been a while since we've seen another."_

After watching her message again and again that night the only things he remembered were applying for a leave of absence, booking a flight to Corellia, throwing a random choice of clothes into his old flightbag and storming off to the next spaceport. The greatest obstacle of visiting his home planet had not come to his mind until the space liner had been well underway to Corellia: he was a member of the New Republic Military. Even though Corellia maintained nominal independence from both the Republic and the Empire the imperial factions had gained a lot of influence on his home world after the death of Palpatine. While he was not in the same league as Han Solo or Wedge Antilles there was a chance of being arrested and thrown into prison. Or worse.  
For some unfathomable reason he wasn't overly worried about that possibility, though. Corellia was a trade junction and a haven for smugglers and other shady figures. Tens of thousands of people were coming in to Coronet City every day so the chances of him being picked out by the Immigration Agency were very slim. As long as he didn't advertise his current affiliation he should be fine.

A light above the passage into the First Class department flashed and the speakers cackled to life.

_"Ladies and Gentlemen! This is your Captain speaking. We're expecting some atmospheric disorders so we'd like to ask you to fasten your seat-belts. Thank you!"_

Myn sighed and clicked the belt into place, pulling it tighter so he wouldn't get tossed around by the turbulence. Just what he needed – as if his stomach wasn't making somersaults already.

_Pull yourself together_ , he told himself sternly and took a calming breath.  _It's not like you're being inserted undercover into an Imperial world._

He wasn't completely without resources, Corellia was his homeworld after all. He still had his parents, his uncle's family and some of his childhood friends to turn to  _if_ he snafued something. His father might have been pensioned years ago but Myn figured the old warrior still had some connections to certain people. Yet the Ranats kept gnawing at his innards.

"Nervous?" The voice was manly rough but full of warmth. And dripping with amusement.

Myn gave his neighbor a measured glance from the corner of his eyes and nodded. "A little," he admitted.

"Don't worry," the stranger answered and showed a toothy grin. "It sounds worse than it is."

A corner of his mouth twitched upwards. "I wasn't exactly nervous about the turbulence."

The older man cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. " _ Bey Valle Ihn fitel fil de Corelli _ _?_ "

It took Myn a few seconds to sort through his memory for the correct answer. The old Corellian dialect had come pretty much out of fashion nearly half a century ago and while he'd learned it in school he'd never used it outside the lessons. " _ Jes, Minmin Bey Ihn fitel fil de Ten planeto _ _._ "

His neighbor laughed lightly, a deep rumble which Myn found strangely comforting. "I'm impressed, son. It's hard to find a youngster who can still speak the High Tongue." He held out his hand. "Kard Venns."

Myn grasped the outstretched hand and shook it. "Myn Donos."

"So how long have you been away from home?"

Donos didn't bother to hide the surprise on his face. "How did you …?"

Venns grinned. "Just guessing." He gave him a thorough up and down glance. "I like to think I can distinguish a soldier from a civvie. Been one long enough, you know. And since you're not in a military transport I don't think you're still with CPD." He cocked his head again. "Flyboy, I'd say."

Myn felt uncomfortable being this … transparent. He wasn't used to having someone read his body language and hit the Death Star exhaust port with the first proton torpedo. "True," he admitted quietly.

The older man laughed again. "Don't worry. It isn't  _that_ obvious. Your little secret is safe with me."

Donos grimaced. "Thanks. I guess I should hope the Customs Officers don't have your practiced eye, shouldn't I?"

"Don't worry about it." Venns waved his concerns off. "Leave them to me. I know how to deal with them."

Myn raised his eyebrow and clamped down the urge to snap off a retort. There was a certain edge in the older man's voice, a familiar edge. He'd heard it before, his father had used it, his instructors, Wedge and even General Solo. He knew he had used it, too. It was probably a feature of the Corellian gene pool, something connected to the violent instincts they'd inherited from their distant ancestors. Military training seemed to bring it out, refine it, sharpen it.  
He regarded Kard Venns for a few seconds, studying the sharp lines of his massive skull, the angular features of his face, the short-cut brown hair streaked with gray strands and the deep blue of his eyes. Something about this man - _A complete stranger_ , Myn reminded himself. – seemed to suggest complete trustworthiness. His instincts told him that Kard Venns was an akin soul, a warrior like him. But Myn discarded that notion immediately, smashed down walls around his mind to keep these traitorous thoughts at bay. He could not rely on his instincts anymore. He'd trusted Lara and …  
He squashed that thought, forcing it into the darkest corner of his mind. It was unfair to think of her that way. Hadn't she proven worthy of his trust? Hadn't she remained loyal while working undercover against Zsinj?

Venns' voice shook him out of his thoughts. "Corellia isn't the same place you've grown up on, son. You've been away for years, I guess. Some things have changed. You'll understand once we touch down."

_What is he trying to tell me_ , Donos wondered. He thought back to his youth, to his father's lectures about the structure of Corellia's security forces. All civilian aspects of public security were combined under CorSec's banner including the everyday police work, immigration and customs checks. Back in his day CorSec had had a spotless reputation. How had his father put it so eloquently? 

CorSec is a powerful shield against the evils of this galaxy. Battered, scarred but still unbroken.

"Remember – CorSec is no more." Venns's voice had dropped to a low growl and one of his eyebrows began to rise.

Myn could have kicked himself. He'd completely forgotten about that – even though it had been a hot topic among the Corellians attending the New Republic Naval Academy. He had not paid much attention, though, as he'd been occupied studying for the intermediate exams. "I'd forgotten. Sorry."

"You've not given this a lot of thought I see." Venns sighed and put a hand on Myn's forearm. "Let me deal with the Customs folks. It will spare you a lot of trouble."

For a moment instinct warred with insecurity, trust with distrust. Instinct and trust came out on top, much to his own surprise. He sighed and nodded. "Ok, old man. I'll trust you on this one."

Venns faked righteous indignation pretty well. "Who are you calling old, fledgling? I'm not even sixty!" Then a broad grin split his tanned face, a grin which Myn returned.

*** * ***


	2. Chapter 2

*** * ***

As their ship sank further down into Corellia's atmosphere Myn kept his gaze on the fuzzy features he could see outside of the cabin. Far to his right he saw the snow-capped peaks of the planet's highest mountain range sticking out of a solid cloud layer. He'd been there many times, either with his family visiting the Nature Park surrounding the collection of six thousand meter mountains or during excursions as part of his High School curriculum. He remembered trekking through the dark woods at the mountains' foot for days, sleeping in his trusty old tent, living on berries, rationbars and the snackpacks his mother had made. Once, autumn had been about to give way to winter in this part of his home world, his class had gone on a six-day excursion to study the effect of winter on the local fauna, trying to understand how evolution had prepared them to live in a world full of ice and snow for more than six months. He saw a younger version of himself, shoveling snow with a tiny folding spate …

_A sixteen year old Myn shoved the spate into the snow, stitching off a straight edge and proceeded to prepare a safe place for his tent. Just as his father had taught him. The spate's blade dug back into the snow and he flung it to the side of the narrow pit he'd dug so far.  
The class had set up camp in a narrow gash on the southwestern flank of Mount Shervhan, just above the timberline. At this height a little more than a meter of snow was blanketing the naked rocks below. The steep flank of the mountain was providing protection against the icy winds from the north and a broad rocky ledge above sheltered them from avalanches or tumbling rocks. Around him his classmates were busy setting up their own tents, some small one-person tents like his own, some larger three- or four-person ones._

_"Myn?"_

_He turned around and gave the tow-headed girl a questioning glance. "Yes?"_

_Ihna was trying to sort out the mess of tent poles and ropes. "I think I'm stuck here," she admitted and gave a dejected sigh. "I need help."_

_"Sure." He trudged through the knee-deep snow over to where Ihna was trying to set up camp. He gave her tent a practiced glance and immediately went to work. "First you need to unroll the tent. You need to know how much space it needs. And after that sorting the poles and ropes is easy."_

_The girl shot him a mock glare. "Easy for you. I'm not cut for this survival stuff."_

Ain't that the truth _, Myn thought derisively. Ihna was the child of wealthy parents, unused to manual labor and physical exercise outside of an air-conditioned gym. He didn't know much about her nor did he particularly care. Long ago he'd decided that she was one of those party girlies living on Daddy's money and Mommy's reputation. For all he knew she could probably babble about fashion trends, cosmetics and how cute the latest teenie holostar was for hours. She was living in another world, wasn't part of his.  
"You do know you can't just put up a tent on loose snow, don't you? You need to dig a small pit and compress the snow at its bottom."_

_The girl's face lost all color. "Dig? Myn, I don't have a shovel with me."_

Lousy preparation, Lady. _He suppressed a sigh of irritation. Knowing her next question he decided to spare her the embarrassment and offer his help. "Don't worry about it. Let me finish setting up my own tent. Then I'll help you."_

_"You would?" Ihna beamed at him. "Thank you!"_

_"You're welcome." He pointed at her tent. "Just put the tent where you want it and mark the edges."_

_The girl nodded and dragged the tent to her chosen spot while Myn turned back to finish setting up his own. He kept working on his own pit, compressing the snow at the bottom to a solid fundament, piling it up on the sides of the pit to offer some additional protection against the wind. He was drilling the last peg into the snow to secure his tent when he heard Ihna scream._

_"You stinking little Womprat!"_

_He whirled around and saw her wiping the remnants of a snowball from the back of her head. Another ten meters away a dark-haired boy was crushing snow into another ball._

_"Tsktsktsk … What would Mommy say if she could hear you now,_ Snow Princess _?"_

_Ihna had finished picking the snow from her bright locks and glared at her assailant. "You're such a jerk, Reid."_

_Reid laughed and threw the next snowball. It missed but Ihna had already crouched down and was making a snowball of her own. Even before she managed to throw it the whole class was engaged in a snowball fight._

_Myn shook his head in exasperation, turned away from his classmates and continued setting up his tent. He ignored a few near misses, shoved his sleeping bag into the tent and put a few finishing touches on his camp. When he was satisfied he grabbed his backpack, pulled a thermos bottle from its depths, took a swig of tea and stowed the backpack in his tent, too._

_His teacher approached him. "You're ready, Donos?"_

_"Yes, Sir!"_

_"Would you mind helping the others setting up theirs, too? Some of them have little to no experience with camping."_

_"Yes, Sir! I'm waiting for them to finish behaving like obnoxious brats, then I'll help Ihna setting up her tent. She's forgotten to bring a shovel."_

_The teacher chuckled and studied the snowball battle with amusement. Reid and Ihna had locked up each other in a wrestling grip and were tumbling across the snow while they tried to shove the other's face into the white mass below. The other boys and girls were trowing snowballs at each other, howling with laughter or cursing, depending on them being assailant or target.  
"Why don't you join the fight? You're done with your tent."_

_Myn shook his head. "Waste of energy and body heat, Sir." He jerked his thumb at the descending sun. "Another thirty minutes or so and the sun will disappear behind that ledge. Then it's going to be awfully cold."_

_The older man gave him a long contemplative glance, one that Donos missed completely. Then he put a hand on the teenager's shoulder and waited for Myn to meet his eyes. "It's no crime to loosen up now and then, Myn. You shouldn't be this serious and matter-of-fact all the time."_

Donos shivered as the flashback ended and he returned to here and now. He hadn't realized how long he'd locked himself up in that straitjacket of regulations and decorum. He'd been a boy for Sith's sake. What had he been thinking?

"You reading me, Donos?" Kard's voice was dripping with sarcasm. Obviously he'd been talking to him for a while.

"Sorry. Been a couple of systems away," he muttered in apology.

"Never mind." Venns shook his head. "I just told you to stick close to me and let me do the talking."

That certain edge was back in Kard Venns's voice. Myn knew he wasn't suggesting – he had just given him an order. "Yes, Sir!"

"Good." Kard nodded. "Now listen. That new Security Agency is called Public Safety Service. If you think Imperial security is bad you haven't met some of these guys. When the Diktat dissolved CorSec he sent a lot of honorable men and women into the wilderness just because they weren't  _politically trustworthy_ . To get a job with PSS all you gotta do is to lick the Diktat's boots, even if you're the scum of society. People say a lot of bad things about Black Sun and rightfully so, but some of these new PSS guys could teach them a thing or two about being greedy." His face took on a decidedly ominous expression. "You'll see."

Myn wanted to ask for some more details but Venns' glare convinced him to wait and see.

_So much for that shield against the evils of the galaxy_ , he thought darkly and turned to look out of the tiny window again. He briefly wondered if CPD had gone through the same washout process but decided not to waste brain time dwelling on it. It didn't matter. He wasn't here to get an update on Corellian politics.

The CruiseLiner turned to port and gave him a grand view over the Corellian capital Coronet City and its major spaceport. It consisted of a large flat duracrete circle of about ten clicks in diameter on an elevated platform just northwest of the city. In the middle a single tower arose above the central flight terminal in the form of a five-pointed star. Ferrocrete bunkers of the CPD, hangars, smaller passenger and freight terminals cowered at the edges of the massive ferrocrete disk while myriads of smaller ships dotted its surface closer to its center.  
Myn raised his gaze and took a look at the city stretching beyond the confines of the spaceport. The thin needle of the Lastdark-Club soared above the skyline which looked more ...  _right_ ... to him than any of Coruscant's ferrocrete canyons. Off to the left he could see the silhouette of the Governor's Palace, the seat of the Corellian Diktat. Just left of it he could make out the old CorSec HQ complex and the rotunda of Coronet's sports stadium.

Even though Kard's words had stung he couldn't shake the emerging well-being in his guts. Even reminding himself of the passport controls ahead didn't help focusing. He'd come  _home_ and that emotion overruled any negative thoughts.

The landing sent a jolt through the ship and Venns stiffened for a moment. "Sorry," he apologized. "Old habits die hard. Had one too many botched landings."

"Any landing you walk away from is a good landing," Myn deadpanned.

Venns glared. "So there  _is_ some Corellian blood in you after all." He grabbed a backpack from the luggage compartment above their heads and flung it over his shoulder. "Let's get going."

Myn grabbed his flightbag and followed the older man through the narrow access tunnel and into a rather utilitarian reception hall. High transparisteel barriers on both sides channeled the travelers and herded them towards a set of simple control stations. Each station was manned by a human officer clad in the spotless dark gray of Corellia's new Security Agency.  
It wasn't just their uniforms that gave them an air of  _imperial grandness_ , even though the style and color reminded him very much of the dull attire worn by Imperial Officers. There was something about their bearing, something he'd seen before on Storinal, Halmad and other worlds. These men – he didn't spot any females wearing PSS uniforms – were trying to appear grand and graceful, not by virtues of their character but through the power they'd been given. Maybe, he mused, this was what drove Imperials into service of that dying colossus. You did not have to be a natural leader, you were given power to act that part.

"ID Card."

Kard reached into the pocket of his jacket and held out the document between middle and index finger of his right hand. But underneath Myn thought he spotted the outline of a decent-sized credit coin, which neatly disappeared below the document scanner in the hands of the customs officer. Venns jerked his head at Myn. "He's with me. Had to yank him away from work to visit his parents. He's OK."

Donos kept the habitual Sabacc face in place, for once glad he'd practiced its use so often. He held out his own ID Card, but the officer did not bother to pick it out of his hands. He gave it an indifferent glance and nodded.

"Fine. You may proceed. Welcome to Corellia."

It was not before they entered the main hall that Myn dared to speak up. "How much?"

"A hundred."

Myn shook his head. "If this is the new Corellia I prefer to stick to my memories."

Kard nodded in agreement and shot a look at the chrono on his wrist. "Listen, son. I have to hurry. My wife is expecting me and I don't want to be late."

"I understand." He held out his hand. "Thank you, Kard Venns. I owe you big time."

The older man took the offered hand and grinned. "Yeah. Exactly one hundred credits. But don't go all saintly on me and start thinking about repaying me. A chance to trick those PSS nerfherders is worth a little financial investment." He slapped Myn lightly on the arm and turned to leave. "Enjoy your stay."

"Thanks again," Myn called and watched him leave. Then he turned and headed for the turbolifts in the core of the terminal.

From afar Venns watched him enter a turbolift and activated his comlink. "Boss? Kard Venns here ... Yeah, yeah – I should have called earlier, but ... Now don't blame me for that. It's not my fault that you were unavailable. ... Ah, shut it. Listen. You won't guess who I bumped into on my return flight."

*** * ***


	3. Chapter 3

*** * ***

Myn left the spaceport and took a hovercab to the center of Coronet City. Even though he felt the lure of the flimsi in his wallet, the one he'd scribbled her address and comlink frequency on, he felt that he needed a little time to sort his jumbled thoughts. Somehow the incident with Venns and the Customs Officer had put him on edge but he couldn't quite put a finger on what had set him off. He didn't know why he was so disturbed by the obvious corruption as he'd already lost any lingering illusions about what government officials really were like a long time ago.  
Or had he been thrown off balance by his own reaction? He had changed and was still changing. His old self wouldn't have accepted Kard Venns's gift, he'd have insisted on repaying the one hundred credits. Although he still wasn't particularly happy about having debts like this with a man he did not really know, he realized that the older man had indeed spared him a lot of potential trouble. Once upon a time he would not have accepted the offered help. Not because of an inherent belief in his own superiority but more a drive to uphold how he saw himself, a perception of self which had turned out to be nothing but an elaborate self-delusion.

_There will be a point in life when you realize that you're in need of help. It's no cardinal sin to admit it and ask for help._

Wedge had been abundantly clear about Donos having to learn to get rid of his self-imposed straitjacket. Getting up the nerve to confide in someone else, to talk about his problems had been just one step on the long and rocky way to rebuilding his sanity. He'd listened to Janson's convoluted pieces of wisdom and had actually managed to make sense of them. Maybe it had taken Janson's  _puppet in a puppet in a puppet_ approach to stabilize and recalibrate the gyro in Myn's head, to jerk him out of the dither that had dominated his life since the death of Talon Squadron.  
It had been the beginning of his healing process though he did not indulge in the illusion of already having covered a good deal of the way. This was precisely what his old self would have done, what  _he_ had done for the best part of his life. He remembered trying to resign his commission after Kidriff, trying to insulate himself from the backlash of his actions. He'd hidden behind his decorum, indulging in the self-deceit that this was the only way out of the mess. Without having to reevaluate his life, that is. Wedge had not given him the chance to slip out through the backdoor again. He'd forced him to look into the mirror he'd been holding for him, forced him to look at the sorry excuse for a man he'd turned himself into. And Myn was grateful that he'd done it. He didn't want to dwell on what he might have done with his life if he'd managed to escape that cleaning thunderstorm.

His unrest, he realized, stemmed from the absolute collapse of his life. Everything had crumbled under the weight of his actions – his self-perception had turned out to be a self-delusion and when it had gone up in a puff of smoke it had taken most of his most fundamental beliefs with it, what he'd believed to be unalterable constants had started to fluctuate wildly. He felt utterly lost in what had once been a neat and tidy galaxy – here the New Republic with its ideals of freedom, democracy and racial equity, there the sinister remnants of Palpatine's Empire with their bigotry, xenophobia and evil. He'd pegged the people on both sides as good or evil, setting up a reality with only black or white. A reality which bore no relation to what was really out there. Lara –  _Kirney_ , he thought vehemently, forcing himself to think of her as the person she was now. – had been the one who had torn down the illusion he'd wrapped himself up in. After Saffalore he'd begun to see Lara as a potential life mate but with her dark secret out in the open he'd reverted to the burning anger he'd felt for so long. And now he wasn't sure about his feelings anymore.  
He sighed. To be frank he wasn't sure of  _anything_ anymore … and that was the crux of the matter. If he wanted to rebuild his life, which he wanted, he needed to lay a foundation which could bear the load of this life. He couldn't move on unless he could figure out which direction was forward. What had Horn called it?  _Recalibrating the moral compass_ .

Dread filled Myn's gut. This trip wasn't just about figuring out what he felt for the woman who called herself Kirney Slane – it was also about building himself a life which was worth the title. But to do that he would have to look down into the dark depths of the abyss … and that had stirred up the dread. He had to find out how much of his previous life had been based on illusions, to what extent he'd deceived himself before he could start figuring out which way was forward.

He narrowed his eyes.  _And I will_ , he vowed.  _No retreat this time._

Only then he realized that his lengthy stroll had taken him to a place he'd never visited before. Treasureship Row was the most notorious red light district within twenty parsecs and had certainly earned the reputation for being a hive of immorality, vanity and dubious businesses. Every Corellian seemed to have a love-hate relationship with this place, publicly condemning it for what it was yet privately feeling a morbid attraction.  
The ghost of a rueful smile crossed his features as he remembered having refused to set a foot inside this place. He'd been in his last year at the Academy of CPD and his class had passed one of the last exams the day before. In their initial excitement and elation some of his comrades had decided to celebrate in one of Treasureship Row's strip bars.

_"You've got to be kidding!" His younger self crossed his arms and glared at the other young man who had entered his room._

_Dorian Triller rolled his eyes. "Come on, Donos. We've passed our exams. It's time for a bit of celebration."_

_"There are still two tests coming our way," Myn reminded him but Triller waved off._

_"You know these two are meaningless. Nobody cares about them."_

_"I do."_

_"You'd be the first."_

_Myn raised an eyebrow. "So?"_

_"What's the matter with you, Myn? Don't tell me you're one of these overbearing moralists." He jerked his thumb at the door. "Fizz knows a bar on Treasureship Row with some of the hottest girls and a good reserve of finest Corellian Whiskey."_

_Donos stared at Triller as if he'd just grown a set of cranial horns. "Are you nuts? Commander Ossed will have out hides if he finds out. We're Cadets of the Academy after all. We've got a reputation to uphold."_

_"Stop spouting the contents of our Code of Conduct at me. Are you coming or not?"_

_Myn shook his head. "No, thank you. If you truly want to get yourself into deep kriff you'll have to do it on your own."_

_Triller's expression softened and he didn't bother to hide his disappointment. He opened his mouth to say something, stopped and shook his head. He turned around and left the room._

He allowed the rueful grin to blossom as he remembered that episode. He'd been so uptight back then, convinced that even setting a foot on Treasureship Row would tarnish his personal honor and damage the Academy's reputation. Now he didn't mind being here even though he wasn't interested in exploiting the various services offered by the brightly lit establishments. He wasn't wired that way after all.

_I feel like a naughty boy sneaking a peak into the 'Adults Only' section of a holo store_ , he thought and felt his grin widen.

He shot a look at his wrist chrono and realized that sunset was just another two hours away. He turned around and headed back into the pedestrian precinct to look for another hovercab. Maybe Kirney would know a hotel nearby … A sudden bout of anxiety hit him head-on. He had no idea what he'd say to her. And what if she wasn't home at the moment?

_You've got her comlink frequency, you_ _ shulhul _ , the tiny voice in his head reminded him.  _Stop dithering and com her!_

Myn took a deep breath and strode into a secluded niche framed by hedges and beds of flowers. He needed a little privacy for the call. It would be bad enough if he made a fool of himself with just La …  _Kirney_ listening. He picked his comlink from a pocket and the flimsi from his wallet and dialed her number with shaking fingers. A second later her voice came out of the tiny speaker and he felt his heart pounding in his throat.

_"Thank you for calling Slane Shipping. Unfortunately we're currently off-planet making a run to Mon Calamari. We expect to be back on the sixteenth of the month and will be ready to take new orders after two days for rest and refit. You may leave a message after the signal tone. We're looking forward to doing business with you."_

Myn clicked off his com and let his shoulders slump. He felt a weird mixture of relief and disappointment, was strangely relieved not having to face her right now but also disappointed at not being able to see her just yet. He felt that confusion bubbling up again, that war between heart and mind. He had to figure out what he felt for her, what he expected to come out of this meeting. According to her message she wouldn't be back before the day after tomorrow, so he would have enough time do think. But was he up to it? Could he do it on his own?

Suddenly the prospect of sleeping in an anonymous hotel room held no appeal to him. He felt the need for some contact with other people. And there was only one place on the planet where he could find it. Myn pocketed comlink and wallet and headed for the nearest MagLev station where he took a train to the small suburban town he'd grown up in.

*** * ***


	4. Chapter 4

*** * ***

Jaleela Donos was a woman in her mid-fifties, but somehow time seemed to have forgotten to imprint the telltale signs of age on her. Her long hair was still black except for a few tiny strands which had begun to turn gray. Her face was almost free of the wrinkles which living over half a century, having born a son and worrying about him should have left behind. It was still visible what had drawn her husband to her nearly three decades ago.

She was kneeling in a bed of her garden, planting bulbs in the cool earth. Her garden was her personal pride and although she wasn't one of the celebrated growers of the Corellian Floral Society she was quite happy to receive praise for the flowerage it produced every year. A few meters away a small lawnmower droid was buzzing across the patch of grass which spanned the space between her beds and the low porch of their house.  
She raised her face towards the sun, enjoying its warmth for a few seconds before pushing her straw hat into her neck, wiping a bit of perspiration from her brow. The winter had been long and cold but finally spring had overcome the icy winds from the north. It was the perfect time for putting the garden in order and to plant new life in its soil.

The lawnmower droid beeped to announce his task was complete. She took a look around, saw that the lawn was perfectly neat again and nodded. "Return to your station."

The disk-shaped droid beeped an affirmation and headed off to its recharging station.

She followed it with her eyes and smiled wistfully at the memory of a two-year-old Myn chasing the droid across the yard. He'd tried to whack it with a stick and had shrieked with laughter every time the droid had voiced its displeasure through shrill beeps. Nearly a quarter of a century had gone by since then and the tiny boy had grown into a man. She hadn't seen him for three long years, had never received a message they could still decipher. The Diktat's censors had managed to scramble all of his holos to such a degree that they had been unable to understand anything he'd tried to say. All they could extract from those messages was that he was still alive.

_Better than nothing_ , she mused and returned her attention to her planting. She'd have to finish planting this row of bulbs, then she could prepare what was going to be an evening of long-forgotten pleasures: an opulent dinner, a long hot bath and a good holobook in a quiet house ... That sounded almost too good to be true.

The characteristic groan of the front door made her look up. She felt her jaw drop. The face was older than she remembered, more weathered but still the unruly mop of black hair and the blue eyes confirmed his identity. Jaleela scrambled to her feet and ran over, drawing her son into a tight embrace.

"You're home," she croaked and let her tears flow freely. "You're really here."

Myn held her tightly, inhaled her familiar scent and planted a kiss on the top of her head. "Yes, I'm home," he whispered.

They remained locked in their embrace for a few minutes before Jaleela withdrew her arms from around her son's waist. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and smiled up at his face. "Forgive me. I'm a sentimental old woman."

Myn smiled. "You don't have to apologize. And you're not old." He took a look around. "Is father here?"

She shook her head. "No. He's somewhere on the southern continent on a fishing trip."

Myn raised a dubious eyebrow at that. " _Fishing trip_ ?"

Her smile widened. "That's what I said when he told me about it."

Myn cocked his head and returned the smile. He'd spotted the mischievous twinkle in her brown eyes and knew she must have teased his father mercilessly. "How come he's gone fishing?"

"Some of his old friends from CPD invited him. He didn't have the heart to turn them down."

Myn was about to fire off a retort when an airspeeder pulled up beside the road. The passenger door swung open and his father, dressed in old camouflage pants and a light tan vest, extricated himself from the vehicle. Upon seeing Myn he froze and gave him a wide-eyed stare before kicking open the front door and rushing over to where they stood. Myn held out his hand but his father flung his arms around his son and drew him into a rib-crunching embrace.

"Emperor's bones, Myn. What are you doing here?"

Myn gave a helpless shrug. He didn't know how to approach that subject, what exactly he would tell them.

His mother shot her husband a look of confusion. "How come you're here, Selan? Aren't you supposed to be trying to catch Southern Salms on the other side of Corellia?"

Myn's father grinned. "I've got friends in the right places. Kard Venns commed me a few hours ago. I had Roarn fly me back to Coronet City as fast as possible."

Myn's jaw dropped. "Kard is your friend?"

Selan nodded. "He was Sergeant in my first unit. I've known him for nearly thirty years. Guess my surprise when he commed me and told me he'd bumped into you on the flight to Corellia."

Jaleela gave her son a bright smile. "Leave the details for later. I'll make dinner and invite your Uncle and Aunt." She held up her hand to forestall any protests. "Objections overruled. They haven't seen you in years, either. And now get in. Move it."

*** * ***


	5. Chapter 5

*** * ***

The evening had started out as a moment of bliss, a rare time of carefree celebration. Selan's brother and sister-in-law had come over from their farm sixty clicks south of Coronet City. Everyone seemed to be all too happy to have the lost son back in the circle of the family, albeit for just three weeks. For a short time even Myn could forget about the ordeal he'd been through. He realized he hadn't felt this relaxed in a very, very long time. Family provided a fundamental level of stability which couldn't be broken even under the worst possible circumstances.

Unfortunately life had ways to bring someone back to the ground, to overshadow the happiness of being home with the bleakness of reality. He had known they would ask about his life in the New Republic, had known he'd have to tell them  _everything_ . And so he had. He'd left out nothing, nothing except that holo message recorded two days after Lara Notsil's death which he carried on a datacard in his flightbag.  
He had felt the need to keep the secret of Kirney Slane to himself, at least for now. He wanted to sort his thoughts, his emotions on his own at first. He had no idea how his family would react to the fundamental reason for his visit and he did not want to be bothered by well-meant advise. Or influenced by his relatives – at least not before he could think things through properly.

Myn stared out of the window of his room, watching the distant lights of Coronet City and the night sky buzzing with ships. His family had reacted pretty much as he'd expected. His mother and aunt had cried openly. For a while Jaleela hadn't been willing to let him out of her embrace. Maybe she had been trying to absorb some of his grief, to lighten his burden. His father and uncle had avoided tears but Myn had seen his father's Adam's apple bobbing up and down more than usual and had heard the sniffles his uncle had tried to suppress.   
But much to his own surprise talking about the backlashes life had thrown at him hadn't stirred up the paralyzing pain he'd felt immediately after Gravan Seven. All he felt when thinking of the Talons was a dull ache, a much more subdued emotion. He'd gone through the fire, had been scorched, but the poison in his veins had been burned away.

If nothing of it had happened I'd still be that mockery of a man I'd turned myself into.

The question now was what do do with his life. He would remain with the New Republic Starfighter Corps, with Rogue Squadron as he specified with a weak smirk, and contribute to the demise of the Empire. His belief in the moral superiority of the Republic remained one of the few things he was still sure of. As was the feeling of being indebted to Commander Antilles.  
The real challenge, however, was to find out what do do with his private life, the part he'd stubbornly ignored for more than a decade. He had to learn how to enjoy life, how to separate the soldier from the ordinary man.

_Maybe figuring out what she means to me will give me a clue where to start and which way to go_ , he thought and gazed at his trusty flightbag which was still hiding the datacard with her holo message. He shook his head. Now was not the time, and not just because he was tired.  
There was the gnawing feeling that he would have to smooth out something else, something even more personal. He'd come home not just to have contact with his family, to draw strength from their support. He knew he had yet to confront himself with the answer to a single painful question:

_How much of my life was based on figments of my own imagination?_

And to get the answer he'd have to have a talk with his father.

Myn rubbed his tired eyes and yawned. The evening had drained him emotionally, leaving him tired and almost physically sore. He shuffled over to his bed and sat down heavily. He let himself fall backwards onto the pillow and closed his eyes. He was asleep within seconds.

*** * ***


	6. Chapter 6

*** * ***

Selan and his brother were sitting on the porch, nursing bottles of Ale. A weak forcedome insulated them from the chill of the spring night and kept the buzzing insects away. It was late, rather close to midnight, but they were too agitated to feel fatigue.

Voth took a sip of the spicy brew, sighed and stared into the nothingness of the night sky. "I wonder if I would have made it."

Selan nodded. "Same here. Life hasn't been kind to Myn. He must be tougher than anyone of us thought."

His brother took another sip. He remembered the teenager who'd projected an aura of calm and determination, who seemed to be sure of what he wanted. The man he'd seen today displayed none of that certainty. "Does Myn … I don't know. I think he's changed."

Selan snorted. "Show me the man who would not be changed by such experiences."

"True. But there's something else." He narrowed his eyes. "Does he feel … utterly lost … to you?"

Selan gave his brother a contemplative glance and nodded. "I agree. He seems to question … well …  _everything_ ."

"No, not everything." Myn's uncle shook his head. "He's questioning himself, his mind, his heart and instincts."

Selan raised a curious eyebrow. "And that doesn't qualify as  _everything_ ?"

"He didn't question his work for the Reps," Voth reminded him. "And he said he doesn't hate that woman. Gara or Lara. Or whatever."

Myn's father nodded thoughtfully. He remembered Myn talking about his feelings for … Lara … and how crushed he'd been when her dark secret had been uncovered. His face had been utterly devoid of emotions but it wasn't the Sabacc mask his son had cultivated during the years of his adolescence.  
Once, in what seemed to be another life but had really been just ten years ago, his son had been a serious and solemn boy. He'd been intent on going to the Academy, following his father's footsteps and becoming an officer in service of the Corellian Planetary Defense Forces. It had worried him but he hadn't known how to approach his son, how to make him talk. "I'm wondering if I am not to blame for his current condition," he said quietly.

Voth glared at him. "Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not." He leaned back in his chair and planted his legs on the edge of the bench. "Remember how Myn was in his teens?"

"Of course," his brother answered hesitantly, wondering what Selan was trying to get at. "Calm, considerate, self-confident."

Selan shot him a daring look. "Does the term 'Sabacc mask' ring a bell?"

Voth winced. He'd tried to bring his nephew's rigid self-control to Selan's attention, but his older brother had talked him into leaving Myn be. "Yeah, yeah. I remember."

"I was wrong. I know that now," Selan admitted. "I feared I might shatter his world."

"I'm not sure I can follow you."

Myn's father sighed. "Have you ever had the impression that Myn was trying too hard to please me?"

"He wanted to follow your footsteps."

"True." He lowered his gaze. "He wanted me to be proud of him and I was. But he just assumed he'd have to become an officer, too."

"You didn't want him to join up?"

Selan shook his head. "That's not what I meant. I was thrilled when he told me. But I wanted him to make that decision based on what  _he_ wanted, not based on what he thought I wanted him to do."

"Why didn't you talk to him?"

"As I said – I was afraid I'd shatter his world. He'd worked himself into such a state of determination that I feared he'd fall apart if I said anything." Selan sighed again. "Besides I wasn't at home way too often at that point. That was three years before Yavin and the Rebellion had just begun to pick up speed. The Imps were seeing insurgents everywhere."

Something made click in Voth's head. "And every time you got a leave he'd become better at hiding his thoughts and feelings."

Myn's father nodded. "It was as if the Code of Conduct had come to life. He wanted to be the perfect gentleman, the perfect officer. A droid had less self-control," he hissed. "He didn't go out with his friends, he didn't enjoy his life, he didn't get into mischief … All he did was to study, train, eat and sleep."

Voth regarded his brother for a few seconds, then said softly, "It's not too late for that talk, yet."

Selan seemed to shrink in his chair. "I know. And that scares me." He turned to look at the other man. "I made a mistake in not talking to him, allowing him to become something I did not want him to become. Now I'm afraid of giving him advise. I could do even more damage."

"His life has already fallen to shambles," Myn's uncle reminded him. "I don't think there is anything left to damage."

"Thanks for your vote of confidence," Selan muttered dryly.

"Your son came home because he realized he needs help. That is way beyond what the old Myn would have done. I guess he will approach you. Don't leave him alone because you're afraid to cause any more harm." Voth gave him a direct stare. "He will ask for your opinion, not for you to solve his problems."

The glass door opened and Myn's aunt stepped onto the porch. She approached her husband and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's late. Jaleela has prepared the guest room for us."

Voth rubbed his eyes. "You're right. Let's go to bed." He rose, put a hand on Selan's shoulder and waited for the older man to meet his gaze. "Think about what I said."

When the other couple had withdrawn for the night Jaleela appeared from behind the curtains and squatted down next to her husband. "What was that about?"

Myn's father kept staring into the night. "Myn and I are going to have a man-to-man talk. I'm just afraid to mess it up completely."

She placed a light kiss on Selan's temple and took his hand. "I'd be worried if you weren't dreading that talk. But it isn't your place to sort your son's life. That's his job. Just answer whatever question he's going to ask. Just be honest." She dragged him to his feet. "Let's go to bed. Tomorrow's going to be difficult enough. No need to add a lack of sleep to the list."

*** * ***


	7. Chapter 7

*** * ***

"Would you like to go for a walk, father?"

Myn had approached his father right after breakfast, not wanting to put this off any longer. Selan had given him a strange look he hadn't been able to decipher completely and which made him feel slightly edgy. He'd known his father as someone who could not be bothered by chaos and bustle, who could maintain an aura of calm and confidence when others had already given in to despair. He could not remember his father ever surrendering to any problem, no matter if the problem was of professional or private nature. But this time the signs he'd received from his father had pointed to Selan Donos … being  _scared_ .

He'd shaken his head. Surely he'd simply misinterpreted things. He wasn't as adept at reading body language as Face, could not decode all of the little messages people were habitually conveying through gestures and posture. During his sniper training he'd learned to detect when a hostage-taker was about to commit violence, to discern simple stress from the intent to kill or maim innocent people. Shalla had taught him to read an attacker's intents in her hand-to-hand lessons, even though he'd never managed to actually defend himself against her. She'd given him several hidings without breaking out in a sweat, but he'd been fine with that outcome. He was … had been the Wraith's sniper and preferred to deal with opponents from a distance. But this wasn't an opponent he'd been trying to read – this was his father. In the end he'd decided to forget about it. It didn't matter.

The house of Myn's parents was situated in a residential area mostly inhabited by middle-class families and pensioners – neatly kept homes with lush gardens, green trees and a large park. Once the small town had been an independent community, its roots dating back several millennia to the first settlers. But when the growing Coronet City had reached the outskirts it had lost its independence and had been made a new district of the Corellian capital. Yet the settlement had retained its rural style and lacked the artificiality of modern metropolitan settlements. These houses were still homes to their owners. They'd invested time and sweat into turning the place they lived into the home they'd envisioned as their ideal home.

_That makes this place special_ , Myn mused as he strolled through the narrow lanes separating the estates.

He'd lived on Coruscant for several months, had learned not to be overwhelmed by the sheer mass of duracrete and people, but he had never developed even the most basic attachment to the city planet. Coruscant was too dirty, too artificial and too crowded for him to actually like it, but what turned indifference into dislike was the lack of a soul. There was nothing humble about Coruscant, the planet could only rule the Galaxy through its bureaucratic apparatus or starve to death. Not even the rule of the New Republic had managed to wipe out the planet's sheer arrogance, the quintessence of the Old Republic and Palpatine's Empire.

_Someday_ , he thought as he crossed a narrow dirt track separating a row of fenced gardens from a small grove,  _I'll return here and settle down._

His father's voice cut into his musings. "One of your old tracks?"

Myn nodded and gave his father a measured glance from the corner of his eyes. "My standard track. I used to run two clicks in the morning and five in the evening."

"I remember." Selan grinned. "Your mother used to gripe about the mass of dirty, smelly clothes you produced every week."

Myn gave his father a teasing smile. "And I remember you complaining about me blocking the shower."

His father chuckled. "That, too."

The grove ended abruptly at a sandy scarp. Myn leaned on the old metal rail which was supposed to keep careless visitors from tumbling down the fifty meters to the bottom of the slope. Beyond the country opened into an endless collection of brown and green agricultural fields, interrupted only by small forrests and rivers. This early in the annual cycle of seasons the golden sea of ripe grain was missing as were the fleets of massive harvester droids.

His father leaned forward on the rail next to his son and stared out into the distance. "Remember your first flight in our old airspeeder?"

Myn chuckled and turned to his father, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "Yeah. I mixed up throttle and brake. Nearly ended shooting over that scarp here. Uncle Voth was not pleased."

"That's the understatement of the year. I haven't heard him using this kind of language ever again."

Myn nodded somberly. "That was the first dressing down I ever received." His initial amusement had evaporated completely as he remembered his shock at being yelled at. He'd thought of it as a personal failure, that he'd let his family down. "Father, may I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"Have you ever …" Myn struggled to shape his thoughts into complete sentences. "Have you ever reached a point in life which made you realize that some of your fundamental beliefs were … well … wrong?"

His father did not react, just kept staring into the distance. His gaze was unfocused, his eyes looking back in time. "Yes," he answered finally and turned his head to look into his son's face. "Twice in fact."

Myn raised his eyebrows and cocked his head, curiosity obvious on his features. "Twice?"

His father nodded and gave him a rueful smile. "Your mother. You." He folded his hands. "You do remember Grandfather Anthan? My father?"

"A little. I was six when he died."

"Yes. He was a great person and a better father than I could have ever hoped for." Selan drew in a breath and exhaled slowly. "He was a farmer, as his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had been. His life was to get up with sunrise, tend the animals, work on the fields all day, tend the animals again and go to bed well after dusk. It was the only life he knew, the only life he wanted. But I felt imprisoned on our farm, locked away from the galaxy. You know the life of a farmer – hard work every day, little income and big worries, you marry young, have a load of kids and die without ever having seen what's beyond the borders of your land.  
"I wanted to get out, see the galaxy, make a difference. I had no intention of taking over my father's farm. I wanted to join the CPD, do something with my life I deemed useful. I did not want to be trapped on a farm with a wife and kids, work all day for next to nothing and watch my dreams die one by one." He turned his gaze to his son and Myn read nothing but utmost respect and love in his father's expression. "My father never put any obstacles in my way. He never showed if he was disappointed in me or not. He even encouraged me to find my own way, to live my own life. I know he'd wanted me to follow his footsteps, but accepted my choice without a second of hesitation. So I went to the Academy and became a professional soldier."

Myn had listened intently and felt his respect for the gentle old man he'd hardly known grow. There was something in his father's eyes, however, which did not match the rest of the story. "I sense a 'but' coming this way."

His father sighed and nodded. "All too true. He had nothing to do with it, though. It was all my fault."

"Fault?" Myn didn't understand. "What fault?"

"I wanted to be an officer so badly, wanted to escape the life on my father's farm so badly that I shied away from anything that could thwart my plans of attending the Academy. I ..." His voice trailed off and embarrassment colored his cheeks. "I avoided girls and women like the plague."

_Pretty much like yourself_ , the voice in Myn's head jeered.  _You are indeed your father's son._

Selan met his son's gaze. "I had this repeating nightmare of falling in love with a woman, of becoming father all of a sudden and having to abandon my Academy education to earn our living. I would be tied down to a life I did not want to live. I would exchange one prison cell for another."  
He shook his head. "Even after being commissioned I did not allow myself to think about women. I used to tell myself to wait for a promotion as I'd earn more and would not have to look for a well-paid civilian work if ... When I met your mother I tried everything to keep her away, to ignore what I was beginning to feel. I almost succeeded in driving her away, but for some reason I still don't quite understand she wouldn't leave me alone. She kept coming back in spite of me trying my best to scare her away. She made me realize how I had let my fears rule my life. When I admitted to myself that I loved her I understood that loving her wouldn't tie me down to a life I did not want to lead."

Myn nodded abstractedly, remembering how he'd tried to keep Falynn from cracking his emotional shell. He'd tried to hurt her, to scare her away by mocking anger, but she hadn't resigned. He swallowed the acid taste rising in his throat and croaked, "I know the feeling."

His father put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a squeeze of support. "Don't ever let it happen again, my son. It nearly cost me your mother, and you. I would not be the man I am now. I'd probably be old and grumpy, full of bitterness at the universe and myself.  
"Sharing your life with a woman is more than just following your biological programming. If you love someone unconditionally you will always have someone to celebrate the good days with, someone who supports you on bad days, someone who can make you feel madder than a caged rancor and someone who makes you laugh. Loving a woman this way means to know her weaknesses and fears and to ignore her faults and vices. And – more importantly – it means to show her your fears, let her know of your weaknesses."

Myn nodded, overwhelmed by his father's words. He filed them away for later processing – right now he was not sure if he'd been able to write a comprehensive shopping list for something as easy as ryshcate – but he already felt a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. He had known, subconsciously at least, that his father hadn't lived the spotless and straightforward life he'd envisioned as a child and adolescent teenager. He had never asked, though, afraid of angering him somehow.

_If he survived, I can, too._

He turned back at his father. "You said I was the second point ... ?"

Selan chuckled. "Not hard to understand, though. I never thought about women for a good part of my life and I certainly never thought about having children some day. It just hadn't occurred to me that ... well ... you know." The embarrassed grin was back as was the crimson streak on his cheeks.

Myn made a show of being horrified. "I did not need to know this, Dad."

His father's grin widened. "That's how babies ..."

His son interrupted him. "Stop right there. Don't go any further." He felt his own cheeks heating up.

Selan laughed at his son's unease but sobered up quickly. "As I said I had not given any thought to children. I hadn't dealt with all the things parentage entailed. I was absolutely and completely terrified when your mother told me she was pregnant." He scratched his forehead and Myn read a lot of embarrassment into that gesture. "You know it's the women who are supposed to be temperamental and moody during pregnancy, but your mother was Mrs-Calm-and-Composure herself. On the other hand  _I_ was a case for the nuthouse. One second I was overjoyed at becoming a father, the next I was wallowing in my pessimism. I didn't think I was up to the job, afraid that I'd screw up.  
"And then your mother went into labor, I was called to the Medcenter and got to hold you for the first time. You looked up at me with your blue eyes and I was sold." He turned towards his son and put both hands on Myn's shoulders. "I realized in that moment that my whole view of life was completely screwed up. I had always thought that I'd have to achieve something, to leave a mark on that galaxy through my actions as a soldier. I had thought I'd have to be good at my work to justify my existence, as weird as that sounds. All of that is nonsense, though. You were there and I realized I had a much harder and more difficult task laid out before me. I had to watch over you as you'd grow into a man, I had to teach you the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. My service with CPD, which I had regarded as the core of my life even after marrying Jaleela, was of secondary nature and should have never been my priority."

Myn lowered his gaze, looking at his feet as if he'd discovered something of vast interest.

For a while none of them spoke. Then Selan withdrew his hands. "May I ask you a question, too?"

"Of course."

When his father remained silent Myn looked up and saw him struggling to couch his thoughts. But he could guess what Selan was about to ask. "You want to know if I went to the Academy because of what I wanted or because of what I thought you wanted me to do."

His father's answer was a somber nod.

Myn pinched the ridge of his nose. "I am not sure. I think I never thought about any other careers than joining CPD. I never concerned myself with alternatives." He took a breath and exhaled slowly.

"Then it was  _your_ decision, my son," Selan confirmed. "I just wanted to be sure I hadn't somehow pressured you into something you did not want." He sighed. "But I made a mistake, too. I never approached you, tried to talk to you about the way you were behaving."

Myn swallowed the lump in his throat. "I wanted you to be proud of me," he admitted. "I wanted to be a good son, a good student and ultimately a man you could be proud of."

"I was proud of you, Myn. And I still am."

"I know that now, father. But back then I thought I had to be someone you could be proud of."

Selan nodded in understanding. "So you put yourself in binders, never allowed yourself to be just you. You took the Code of Conduct to your heart, a place it was never meant to get to."

"And it took all these disasters to make me see the errors of my life," Myn finished.

His father angrily wiped a tear from his cheek. "I wish I had taken the heart to talk to you. I might have spared you the experiences."

"Don't beat yourself up, father. It was my choice and I have to live with the consequences. We cannot change the past so all we can do is to learn from our experiences and move on." Something began to tickle in the back of his mind even as he wondered where the prophetic tone of his words had come from. It reminded him of something Face had once said, something about forgiving sins of the past. Or had it been Shalla, during one of their talks after Kidriff? He couldn't remember and it did not really matter. The words, however,  _were_ prophetic in the sense of his impending talk with Kirney.

His father's voice tore him out of his thoughts. "What are you going to do now?"

"I still have my duty to the New Republic, to my friends, to my fallen comrades. But I also need to find that personal aspect of life you've been talking about." He gave him a somewhat sheepish smile. "You haven't been the first person to tell me that."

Selan returned the smile, but his was cockier. "Then I hope my advise will be the first you're going to follow."

Myn's smile blossomed into a grin and he turned to look out into the distance. Tomorrow. Tomorrow would be decisive.

*** * ***


	8. Chapter 8

*** * ***

_The impromptu band made up of mechanics and a few pilots was playing a slow-going song, not one of the more formal compositions but a rather recent addition to the galaxy's pool of music. She snuggled closer to her dance partner, twisting and turning, swaying gently across the dance floor. She felt safe there, surrounded by his arms, and closed her eyes to savor the moment._

_"You're a good dancer," he murmured._

_She looked up and let him spot the twinkle in her eyes. "Must be my dance partner." She lowered her eyes, twirled her finger in a cirular motion and looked up again. He smiled slowly and dipped his head to ..._

####  _[Screeeeech!]_

Kirney jerked upright in her bunk, banging her head against the bulkhead. " _Kark_ ," she swore and pressed her hands against the aching spot. "Tonin! You got a systems overload or what?"

The R2 unit blatted something rude, then whined quietly.

She glowered at the astromech. "No, I did not hear you trying to wake me up before. So I assume you did that on purpose."

Tonin chattered a reply she did not really want to translate.

"Where did you learn that kind of language? Or has being King of Droids gone to your memory banks?"

Tonin screeched again.

Kirney narrowed her eyes. "Listen, Squirt. Any more of that insolence and I'll give you a well-deserved memory wipe."

The droid blew her a raspberry, then chirped something she interpreted as 'hollow threat'.

For a second or two she was speechless at her astromech's antics, then she put on an ominous expression and waved a finger at him. "You're really full of yourself. You'd give Ton and Face combined a run for their money."

The astromech whistled a pretty good approximation of a chuckle and rolled over to the small holoprojector in the corner. He extended his computer connector and brought up a listing of the flow of money of Kirney's bank account, highlighting one of the latest entries.

"They've paid already?" Kirney smiled. "That was quick."

Tonin chirped a question.

"No, I did not have the time to set up the HoloNet console properly, yet. I'm going to do this once we get home." She rubbed the still stinging spot on her head. "By the way. Make a note to remind me of having the sleeping bunk expanded. I banged my head three times in as many days." She smirked. "Can you imagine Kell or Runt sleeping in here?"

The R2 unit whistled the tunes of a well-known funeral march.

Her smirk blossomed into a grin, then faltered and disappeared. Sadness diffused in her heart, sadness about an irreplaceable loss. She missed her friends, the sense of belonging, the camaraderie, the safety of the group. And she missed _him_.

Tonin moaned quietly and bumped his body into her legs, a small gesture of support.

She patted his domed head and forced a smile. "It's OK. It'll get better in time." Even as she said the words she knew she was lying. This weird bunch of people had turned her life inside out and had put her on a better way. They'd taught her things she hadn't known before – friendship, trust, love. She wouldn't, _couldn't_ forget about them. That wound would stay open until the day she died.  
She shook herself out of her thoughts, forcing the sadness into the dark corners of her heart. "Did you manage to download the reports about Selaggis before we left? Any loss lists?"

The droid moaned.

Kirney sighed. "It's OK, Tonin. I guess I just have to hope that all of them have made it." She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, stood and stretched. "How much longer until we drop from Hyperspace?"

Tonin reconnected with the projector's computer socket and a countdown appeared over the lens.

"Twelve hours?" Kirney yawned. "I feel as if I'd slept for two days. Ok, Squirt. Get out of here so I can have a shower. Tell Kolot I'll relieve him in a few."

The astromech agreed with a happy wail and raced out of the tiny quarters. Kirney followed him with her eyes and shook her head. Then she began unbraiding her messed-up hair.

 

Ten minutes later she stepped through the hatch separating the cockpit from the cargo hold. She ignored Tonin's warble and the Ewok sitting at the ship's controls and studied the fuel status displays on the engineering station. They had enough fuel for the rest of the return flight to Corellia plus a comforting reserve, but they'd have to refuel at Coronet Central. She winced at the thought of spending so many of her not-so-abundant credits but it couldn't be helped. So she shook her head and let herself fall into the Captain's chair. "Anything to report, Kolot?"

The Ewok shook his head. "No."

She studied him for a second, but she'd already gotten somewhat used to his abrasiveness. Kolot did not speak more than absolutely necessary. "All right. I'll relieve you now. You may go and get some sleep."

He turned to face her. "That an order?"

She opened her mouth to respond but caught the twinkle in his dark eyes. Was he trying to make a joke?

Tonin chirped something and Kolot shot him a glare.

"No, it was not an order. I'm not your superior." She cocked her head and smiled. "Let's call it a suggestion."

The Ewok looked at her for a few long seconds. Then he nodded. "Good." He removed the prosthetics and tucked them into a corner between engineering station and the ships's hull. "Ran full diagnosis. Starboard center repulsorlift coil little off sync. Need to see tech about it. Port engine fuel consumption three percent over starboard engine. Should get looked at, too." He handed her a datapad.

Kirney stared at him, surprise evident on her features. "How do you know that much about the ship's systems?"

Kolot shrugged and pointed at a large permanent-memory datapad resting on the top of his control console. "Read the manual."

"Are you trying to be funny?" She narrowed her eyes. "That thing has fifteen thousand pages, Kolot. You couldn't possibly …" Then it dawned on her. _Piggy is a mathematical genius. And Kolot …_ "You _did_ read the manual, didn't you?" she asked quietly.

"Kolot did. Read all once. Easy to understand."

She regarded him for a while, the answer to her question slowly forming in her mind. "You do understand everything you read. Instantly. Don't you?"

Kolot shook his head. "Kolot read, Kolot remembers. Understand technical details, how engine works, how repulsorlift to be repaired, how dismantle weapons and put together again." He hung his head. "Other things Kolot not understand, only remember and recite."

Kirney nodded, even though he couldn't see it. "I understand."

The Ewok's head came up again. "Kirney does? How? Kolot no understands himself."

Her voice was gentle as she answered. " _They_ have done that to you." She did not specify whom she was talking about, but both knew anyway. "I had a friend, a Gamorrean, who went through the same. He is a mathematical genius and can calculate hyperspace solutions in his head."

Kolot nodded. "Piggy. Tonin told."

"He did?" She turned to look at the astromech. "Tattletale," she quipped and smirked.

Tonin whistled something that sounded like 'Who? Me?'

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Anything else?"

Kolot nodded and Kirney noted the twinkle was back in his eyes. "Kolot can swear in two hundred languages."

Her eyes went wide. " _What?_ "

Kolot gave her a grin that was all teeth. " _Baay Shfat_ _._ "

She instantly recognized it – a Huttese expression completely unsuitable for polite company. "Oww! Where did you learn that kind of language?"

Kolot glanced at Tonin.

Kirney followed his gaze and gave her astromech a mock furious glare. "Tonin! Never mind the memory wipe. I think I'll have you dismantled."

The droid let out a horror-stricken wail and turned his domed head from side to side.

"Well, ok." She waved her hand at him. "Consider yourself under observation."

Tonin moaned.

Kirney ignored the now sulking droid and turned her attention back at the ship's controls. She put her feet up on her console and took Kolot's datapad to read the diagnosis report. Then she caught the Ewok staring at her. "What?"

"Feet off the console. Now!"

"I beg your pardon?"

Kolot patted his console and cocked his head. "Treat ship like lady, ship will behave like lady. Treat ship badly, ship will react badly."

"If you say so," she said with an amused smirk and took her feet off the console. "Go and get some sleep, Kolot. We're twelve hours away from home."

The Ewok gave her a toothy grin and snapped off a crisp salute. "As ordered, Captain Slane." Then he left the cockpit.

Kirney shook her head and smiled. This was going to be an interesting cooperation. _Very_ interesting, indeed.

Tonin whistled a question.

"Sweet Force, no!" Kirney gave her astromech a mock horrified look. "It's good that Janson doesn't know about him. He'd corrupt Kolot beyond redemption."

The droid warbled something that sounded remarkably like a human chuckle.

Kirney chuckled, too, and turned her attention back at the datapad. "Well, then. Make yourself useful. Keep an eye on the ship. I've got reports to read."

Tonin hooted an affirmation and fell silent.

*** * ***


	9. Chapter 9

*** * ***

It was night again and Myn was back in his old room. Nothing had changed, his bed, the recruitment posters of CPD's various services on the walls, the old holoprojector, the utilitarian lockers. It still permeated the blankness of a teenager's life who had not allowed himself to be just a boy. There was nothing personal about it, except the recruitment posters, nothing denoting that this was  _his_ personal room. As such it was a manifestation of what had been wrong with him.

His thoughts turned back to the conversation with his father earlier that day. It had provided him with some interesting insights into his father's character and life. He'd seen his father like he'd never seen him before. Of course he'd suspected that his perception of Selan Donos had had nothing to do with reality and had been colored by the impressions of an awestruck boy, but hearing it from his father himself put many things in a different perspective.  
Not to mention he'd received confirmation for something he'd been suspecting for quite some time but never dared to ask, too. His father had never wanted him to follow his footsteps – he'd wanted him to choose his own path in life. But Myn had convinced himself that Selan Donos had expected his only son to become a professional soldier like him. Not that he regretted his choice of career. He could not see himself in a civilian job, processing data or shuffling through files upon files. That kind of job … just wasn't  _him_ .

The problem was that teenage Myn had concluded he would have to be a certain kind of person to be a good soldier. He hadn't realized that soldier was just a job, not an attitude to life. Subconsciously he'd known that he was on the wrong path, but he'd simply ignored the gnawing doubts … until his life had blown up in his face.

He remembered his father's words. _So you put yourself in binders, never allowed yourself to be just you._ _You took the Code of Conduct to your heart, a place it was never meant to get to._

_So who am I,_ he wondered. _Who is Myn Donos? Not the soldier, the man._

He chuckled to himself as one of Janson's wisecracks came to his mind.  _You're Corellian. A pilot at that. Which means you're fifty percent ego, thirty percent instincts and twenty percent dumb luck._

His mirth was gone as quickly as it had popped up. He gave a sigh of annoyance, annoyance at himself. Here he was, trying to figure who he was and all he could come up with were stereotypes on Corellian pilots. He had been the personification of a stereotype,  _Lieutenant Cardboard_ himself, and if he definitely didn't need another thing right now it was a new set of stereotypes to replace the old ones.  
Most people considered Corellians firebrands, people who jumped into dangerous situations without giving a damn about their own life, not caring for number crunching and odds. Certainly the actions of a Han Solo, Wedge Antilles or Corran Horn had given these old myths more than just a little credibility, but they didn't fit most of the time. And they certainly did not fit him.

_You're a good man, Myn. All you need to learn is to let yourself off the leash,_ Falynn's voice spoke up in his head.

_In your resignation speech, you take full responsibility for your actions. You throw yourself into the path of the oncoming investigation so that the unit will not suffer. You apologize eloquently. And with your words, you anaesthetize yourself so you don't have to feel anything when your fellow pilots look at you or when your superior officers tell you what they think of you._ That was Wedge, dressing him down after shooting at Lara.

The next voice belonged to Shalla.  _Those who make plans for the future in wartime don't live to see it. Those who postpone living until later won't live to see it. So I'm trying to enjoy the here and now._

_You can't look dignified when you're having fun._ Janson again.

Myn closed his eyes and pressed his palms against his temples. "Shut up," he snarled. "Leave me alone! I need to think and I don't …" He trailed off and snapped his eyes open. " _Oh!_ "  
As usual he was trying to think things through, studying, scheming, looking for a tactical solution for a problem which required no solving on his part. In his very own fashion he was trying to figure out who he should be when all he had to do was to be himself, to do what he wanted. He didn't have to play a role, to shape himself into something the people around him could tolerate. He just had to be Myn Donos.

Absent-mindedly he reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and dug out a datacard. It took him a few moments to realize he was studying it intently. It wasn't just a random datacard – it contained a holo which might prove to be the key to his future.  _In one way or another_ .  
He swung his legs off the windowsill he'd been sitting on and approached his old holoprojector. It whirred to life with a cough and some distinctly unhealthy cackles, but after a few more seconds its familiar hum replaced the brooding silence in the room. He slid the datacard into the respective slot and grabbed the battered remote control. He sank down on his bed, crossed his legs and pressed the worn-out 'Play' button. 

_"Hello Myn. It's been a while since we've seen one another. I'm back on Corellia now, after a few years of knocking around the galaxy."_

The redhead in the holo gave him a smile, one he remembered all too vividly. It was the same smile Lara had given him a few times during Wedge's mutiny aboard  _Mon Remonda_ . A little bit of sheepishness, a little bit of shyness and a pinch of resignation but the glint in her eyes had told him that she'd also been enjoying herself.

_"And I know, after the way we parted company, you may not want to see me again,"_ she continued and Myn was surprised at the sudden sadness in her green eyes. He hadn't seen this before, even though he'd watched the holo often enough to recite it word by word.

_She doesn't think I will answer even though she hopes,_ he realized.

The woman put up a brave little smile.  _"But I had to find out if there was any sort of chance for us. I think I'm finally ready and able to give it a try again."_ Hope replaced the lingering sadness as she gave the recorder a long glance. Hope – that was something new. In all those months he'd known her, her eyes had always held this mixture of resignation and joy, sadness and mirth. But hope … He shook his head.

_"I'll be here, at the address given in the message header, for the next few weeks. I'm trying to drum up traffic for my new shuttle business. I have a ship, a_ Sentinel _-class landing craft I obtained used. I have a copilot you really need to meet and an astromech you already know."_ The twinkle was back in her eyes, the sparkle he'd seen whenever she had teased him. He felt a smile creeping on his face and for once he didn't fight it.

_"Contact me, visit me – do whatever you feel you have to do. I'll accept whatever you decide."_

The holo winked out and Myn automatically restarted it, no longer hearing her words, though.

_Who are you, Kirney Slane?_

He studied her face, tried to decode the thoughts behind her green eyes. The holo was distorting the color of her eyes, gave them a blueish tint like the color of stormy seas on Selonia. Yet he remembered the mirth these two green orbs could convey, the warmth which had spread in his guts whenever she'd smiled or laughed. He realized he still wanted her. He did not want justice, did not want revenge – he just wanted to see her again.

_Traitor_ , another voice inside him screamed.  _She killed the Talons! What would your comrades think of you? How can you do this to them? Is this your way of keeping their memory?_

He exhaled slowly and lowered his head. It always boiled down to this: Would he tarnish the memory of the fallen Talons by hooking up with her? He regarded preserving their memory as his personal duty, to keep them from falling prey to oblivion. He glanced out of his window, looking up to the stars as he'd done so often, wondering what the Talons, their friends, their families would think of him.  
Once he'd seen faces twisted in anger and vengeance, but that been one of the many self-delusions he'd given in to throughout his life. He'd been filled with survivor's guilt up to his back teeth, had been looking for a graceful way to die to join his dead friends in the afterlife. The Wraiths had knocked some sense into him, made him understand how he had done a disservice to his memories and himself.

Myn closed his eyes and brought the faces of Talon Squadron up from the dark depths of his mind. He saw Pidd Grev grinning wickedly, just as he'd done every time he'd tried to set him up with one of the women serving on the base. Lysha Qitan appeared before his mind's eye, the brunette woman from Alderaan who had served as his XO. Her image gave him one of these looks conveying strained patience and barely hidden amusement. She'd tried to drag him out of his room whenever they'd been off duty and he'd suspected her to be Grev's partner in crime and co-conspirator. The Sullustan Jin Ar'uuun came next, chattering happily as always and gave him a thumbs up gesture of support. One by one the Talon's faces flashed past his mind's eye, all of them sporting expressions he saw as encouraging.

Myn opened his eyes and looked out of the window again. He'd like to think his friends would want him to take this chance, to allow himself to find the happiness they hadn't had the chance to find. But that was just his ego talking, manifesting his selfish wishes. He sighed in vexation. Force, life was hard. His gaze returned to the holo hovering above the projector. Kirney Slane was smiling at him and he realized he must have hit the 'Pause' button at some point. Just then he caught sight of a reflection on the window, the outline of a person standing on the threshold. He whirled around.

"How long have you been here?"

His mother smiled and shut the door behind her. "Long enough." She came closer and sat down on the bed, leaving a little space between herself and her son. "I take this is the woman you've told us about. Lara, isn't it?"

Myn nodded mechanically.

"So she is still alive." Jaleela laughed at her son's incredulous expression. "Don't think I'm dense, Myn. It wasn't hard to figure out."

"You weren't supposed to know," he said quietly and looked away.

"I know." His mother reached out and made him look at her. "You're here because of her, aren't you?"

Again he nodded and a touch of red appeared on his cheeks. "Yeah."

She studied him for a few long seconds, then her smile widened. "You know we've been waiting years and years for you to bring home a girl …" Her smile died when she caught the look of distress that flickered across his face. "Myn?"

He shot up, ignoring the protest of his leg muscles against the sudden movement and began pacing around. "I wish it was that easy," he snarled and pushed a hand through his hair. "She  _killed_ my squadron, Mom. Eleven good men and women are dead because of her and …"

" _Myn_ !"

He stopped in mid-stride and stared at her. His mother never raised her voice.

Jaleela pointed at his bed. "Sit down and throttle back. You're thinking so hard that I can already see the smoke coming out of your ears." When her son was sitting beside her again she put both of her hands on his shoulders and held him at arm's length. "Ask yourself – did she really kill your squadron?"

Myn jerked back in horror. " _What?_ "

His mother met his eye and gave him one of her mercilessly direct stares. "Was she there, Myn? Did she fly a TIE? Did she pull a trigger?"

He squirmed. "No," he finally admitted. "But she manipulated the Fleet Almanac entry."

"True," Jaleela admitted. "But did she do that to kill your Squadron or because she'd been given an order?"

He swallowed, his eyes loosing focus as he remembered Lara's voice message.  _There was never a file labeled 'How to Destroy Talon Squadron' and I thought to myself, 'Oh, that's what I want to do.' To me, it was just data about occupied territories and interplanetary borders._

"Myn?"

Her voice brought him out of his reverie. To his surprise he felt his eyes burning and his hand felt a wetness as he rubbed them. "No," he croaked hoarsely and wiped the tears off his cheeks. "She didn't know what was going to happen."

Jaleela reached out and wiped a solitary tear from his cheek. "Then tell me. What is  _really_ bothering you?" She gestured at the holo still hovering over the projector. "It's not because of her. You wouldn't be here if you hated her or if you thought she was trying to lure you into a trap."

Myn suddenly deflated like a dinghy with a hole. "I promised the Talons to bring their killers to justice. I promised to hold up the memory of their sacrifice."

"And now you're afraid you'd betray them by seeing …  _her_ ."

Myn nodded, feeling a lot older than his twenty-six years.

His mother squeezed his hand. "Not to sound impious, Myn, but I think you need to accept that your friends are dead. You may believe that they're watching you from the afterlife, but they won't appear as ghosts to give you lectures about how you're living your life." She gave him a gentle smile. "You are your own taskmaster, Myn. The strictest one at that. You've always chained yourself to ethereal concepts and forced yourself to abide their rules, even when you did not want to. And now you believe you're bound to an oath you swore on behalf of your dead friends to maintain enmity towards this woman, even though your heart wants the opposite. Tell me, and be honest – would they want you to cling to something that would make you miserable?"

Myn knew he'd had that discussion already, months ago aboard the  _Nightcaller_ . And he knew the answer to her question. "No," he whispered and pinched the ridge of his nose.

"Then why are you torturing yourself? Your friends would not begrudge you for being happy. And if this woman can make you happy then you should not let this chance pass by. You don't know how many of these life will give you."

"I know." He sighed. "Father told me how you two met."

"Then you know that you sometimes need to fight for what you want." She smoothed back the mess of his hair. "Go and see her, Myn. And listen to your heart. That's all I can say."

"I will," he answered and sat up. "I don't know what's going to happen but at least I'll go and see her."

Jaleela smiled. Her son might not have realized it, yet, but she was pretty sure his life was linked to the life of the beautiful redhead. The two of them would still have to talk, get the issues between them off their chests, but she felt confident that her son was on the right way. The rest, however, was in the hands of the maker …

*** * ***


	10. Chapter 10

*** * ***

The Traffic Controller's voice betrayed boredom as he directed the ship towards the small allotment of the tarmac Kirney had rented. " _Fair Trade_ you're cleared for landing. Come around to heading two-twenty-five to oh-five-six and slow your rate of descent to eight-three-zero."

"Understood, Coronet Control.  _Fair Trade_ inbound." Kirney flicked a few switches and the entry vector appeared on the landing craft's HUD. She turned to look at the Ewok at the controls and nodded. "Take her down, Kolot. That's our vector."

"Yub-yub."

She felt a stab at that, but managed to keep it from showing on her face. Yet another reminder of what she'd lost.

Tonin hooted and focused his optical sensor on Kolot.

"Why should I," Kirney inquired and arched an eyebrow at her astromech. "Kolot seems to manage just fine."

The R2 unit wailed in what Kirney took for mock panic.

Kolot gave the droid a death-glare and mumbled something about 'round-capped trash-can'.

Tonin blatted a rude answer.

" _E chu ta_ ," Kolot growled.

Kirney smacked her palm on the armrest of her chair. "This stops right now! I don't want to hear that kind of language on my ship. Is that clear?"

Kolot rumbled an affirmation, but didn't turn to look at her.

She turned in her seat and glared at Tonin. "And you don't have to provoke him whenever you get the chance. Remember what I told you about memory wipes?"

The droid gave a subdued hoot.

"Yes, I am your friend. But that doesn't mean I have to put up with your antics. Kolot is a sentient being and does have feelings, too."

Tonin swiveled his optical receptor to Kolot, fixed his gaze on him for a few seconds and chirped a remarkable imitation of a human sigh.

"Good." Kirney nodded. "Now I'd like you to inform the customer that we're inbound to Central and will land in a few minutes. Then contact one of the cold stores at the Spaceport, reserve space for twenty sealed containers and instruct them to send a loading crew to get the seafood out of our hold. I don't want that stuff to rot."

The droid warbled in compliance.

When she turned her attention back at the controls and the viewport ahead she noted with surprise that they'd already made it into the planet's atmosphere. Usually the atmospheric entry was accompanied by bumps and groans of the ship's key structural parts, but this time she hadn't felt or heard anything. "Impressive," she said. "That has to be the smoothest atmospheric entry I've ever experienced."

Kolot nodded, but made no comment. He just kept staring ahead.

Coronet City's spaceport grew larger in the main viewport and Kirney squinted her eyes when she spotted a dot growing larger in their flightpath. "Drift to port, laterally. At least half a click. There's an  _Action VI_ transport on our vector and I somehow doubt they're going to dodge."

Kolot had already initiated the maneuver and brought the  _Fair Trade_ out of the larger ship's way.

Their evasion hadn't gone unnoticed, though. "Shuttle  _Fair Trade_ , you're off your assigned vector. Do you have problems?"

"Negative, Coronet Control," Kirney answered calmly. "We're just getting out of harm's way. There's an outbound  _Action VI_ on our vector and they're a bit bigger than we are."

The Controller's answer was colored by what she took for a pinch of embarrassment. "Affirmative,  _Fair Trade_ . Sorry 'bout that."

Kirney rolled her eyes and flipped a switch to severe the com connection. She looked out of the starboard viewport and saw the bigger freighter pass just a few hundred meters away. Maybe one day …

"Coming in to land," Kolot informed her. "Ready to raise wings."

Kirney punched a button on her console and let her finger hover above another. "On your mark."

Kolot remained silent for a few more seconds before throttling back and kicking in the repulsorlifts. "Wings up now."

Kirney pressed the glowing button and felt the shudder of the wings' movement through her seat. "Wings are up. Landing gear extended."

Kolot slowed the ship's forward momentum to a crawl until he had reached their intended landing spot. He slowly lowered energy input to the repulsorlifts until the landing-craft touched down with a barely noticeable  _Thud_ . He flipped a few switches. "Main engines off, fuel pumps off, fuel lines secured," he reported.

"Don't forget the repulsorlifts," she added.

Kolot glowered.

"Just checking." She raised her hands in a gesture of defense.

Tonin whistled a question.

"Where?" The droid warbled and she checked her console for a translation. Then she looked out of the forward viewport at the approaching frames of two men in PSS uniforms.  _Great_ , she groaned inwardly.  _Just what I need on top of it all_ .

Kolot cocked his head. "Is that not …?"

Kirney gritted her teeth. "They are. Stay here. I'll deal with them." She grabbed a datapad with her ship's manifest and made her way to the boarding ramp.

The two men were already waiting as she descended the ramp. She put up her business smile, even though she felt more like spitting blasterbolts or some highly potent acidic fluid.

"Welcome home, Captain Slane," the older of the two men greeted and gave her a curt nod.

"Thank you, Lieutenant Fern," she replied politely before focusing on the younger of the two. "How's your hand, Officer Tviss?"

The other officer glowered and clutched his bandaged hand. When she'd landed on Corellia for the first time the two of them had been assigned to check her ship and documents, but in spite of her definite warning Tviss had ruffled Kolot's fur. The Ewok had not been pleased and had bitten the human's hand. Hard.

Lieutenant Fern chuckled and shot his partner an amused look from the corner of his eyes. "I think his ego is more bruised than his hand." He held out his own hand.

"Twenty sealed containers containing six metric tons of Calamarian seafood products," Kirney explained as she handed over the datapad with the manifest.

The Customs Officer quickly scanned through the datapad's content, not really reading it. She knew it was for show, to slow down the procedure and to remind her of their superior status. He couldn't possibly read the whole thirty pages in that short a time.

"Everything looks fine, Captain Slane," he finally said and handed the datapad back to her. "A scanner team is already underway. Let them finish their checks, then you may start unloading." He gave her a sloppy salute and turned his back at her.

His younger partner threw her a last glare – which she answered with a frosty smile – and followed him.

Kirney marched up the boarding ramp and called, "Kolot, Tonin. Are you ready?"

The droid chirped happily and came rolling out of the cockpit.

"Did you …?" Her datapad beeped and she punched a button to read the received file. A small smile appeared on her lips and she gave Tonin an appreciative nod. "Good work, Squirt."

Tonin moaned at that name and Kirney's smile blossomed into a grin.

"What now?" Kolot stepped through the hatch and stared at her.

"You two go home," she informed the Ewok. "I'll stay here and watch the scanning crew and the cargo loaders, then I'll meet with the customer. Shouldn't take too long. An hour or two, at most."

Kolot nodded and marched off, but Kirney held Tonin back for a moment.

"Check our messages.  _All_ of our messages," she said and gave him a direct look. "Then check the Message Boards for flight orders we can fulfill."

Tonin beeped happily and raced off in pursuit of the dark-furred Ewok.

 

Kirney watched the two flatbed cargolifters rise and move forward. Tonin had arranged for the containers to be kept in a nearby cold store since she wasn't able to have them transported to her customer. Her planet-bound capacity of transporting was limited to what she was able to carry with her own bare hands and commercial freight haulers were prohibitively expensive.  
She grimaced slightly. A decent airspeeder was on the list of things she needed to obtain, but with her current lack of adequate financial reserves she was dependent on using public transportation or hovercabs. Selling the various knick-knack Zsinj had been so kind to store in the  _Sentinel_ -class landing craft had given her a decent seed capital to get her shuttle business underway, including renting a small office with an attached apartment, but it wasn't enough for her to become sloppy. She would have to be operating  _very_ economically for quite some time, but that was OK with her.

_I am my own master_ , she thought and smiled.  _I am free._

Kirney shook her head and descended the boarding ramp and punched the button to close the ramp. As she went through the procedure of locking down the ship she frowned at the simplicity of the lock. That was another thing she'd have to change. She'd have to program a decent security system for her ship – ship thieves were always looking for easy game and she didn't want to be an easy game – and update the security hardware. She sighed.

_Right after an airspeeder, a complete engine overhaul, stronger shields, a computer upgrade …_

She shook herself out of her thoughts, locked the ship and headed for the nearest cargo terminal. She had an appointment and needed to take one of the MagLev trains cruising below the Spaceport's duracrete disk. She had made half the distance when a high-pitched whine made her falter. She turned towards the source of the noise and felt a wave of sadness wash over her.  
Half a click away a mixed snubfighter squadron of the Corellian Defense Forces was rising through the roof of their hangar. The whine was generated by the repulsorlifts of the X-Wings and Y-Wings, shrill enough to hurt human ears but for Kirney it was so much more painful. It was a reminder of a lost life, of friends now lost to her, of a life she had wanted to live but couldn't.

_He might have answered_ , a tiny voice whispered in the back of her head. Kirney had to fight the impulse to return to her new home and check the messages herself.

_He won't answer. He hates me_ , she told herself. While pessimism had never been part of her character she found it all too easy to cling to it. It woke her every morning, whispered its depressive words throughout the day and sometimes managed to infiltrate her dreams at night. But where had it been when she'd recorded the message a few days ago? Why had she contacted Myn Donos at all? Chances were grand that he'd given it to General Cracken. And then what? Making sure she'd find herself confronted by NRI-hired thugs upon returning home? A stun bolt into her back, a bag over her head and a military trial on Coruscant?

Kirney dug her fingernails into her own forearm, wrenching herself away from the depressing thoughts and resumed her stride. She had a business to run. Whatever happened to the private part of her life would have to wait until later.

*** * ***


	11. Chapter 11

*** * ***

An hour, a successful business talk and three cafs later she finally opened the back door leading into the small apartment she'd rented for herself and her crew. The meeting with the customer had energized her, had given her hope that a bloated ego was not an integral part in the male Corellian gene pool. It was indeed refreshing to meet a no-nonsense, strictly business and straightforward kind of person as opposed to the ego-pushers, self-promoters and brown-nosers she'd met on her new home planet so far. Maybe, she mused it  _was_ something specifically Corellian. Or, maybe, the decent Corellians had left their home planet and only the bottom of the barrel had stayed behind.

Unbidden Myn's face appeared before her mind's eye. Something twisted in her guts and the swarm of butterflies rose for another jaunt through her innards.

"Stop daydreaming," she chastised herself and closed the door behind her. She kicked off her boots and yelled, "I'm home!"

A droidish warble answered her from the main living room – a serious euphemism for a small chamber stuffed with an old sofa, a shabby armchair and a rather decrepit entertainment center – and she stuck her head through the door.

"Where's Kolot?"

The droid turned his domed head towards the door of the 'fresher station.

She nodded and was about to enter the kitchen when her ears caught the sound of water running. Her eyebrows rose. "Kolot is having a shower?"

The R2 unit chattered an affirmation.

"He's an Ewok. I've never …" She caught herself. Kolot might be an Ewok, but Zsinj's scientists had molded him into something halfway between Ewok and human being. He spoke Basic, had human mannerisms, had a memory retention rate way above hers … Having human standards for personal hygiene would not be abnormal for him.

Tonin chortled something Kirney didn't catch. She came closer and crouched to look at the translation on the droid's datascreen.

A grin crept on her face. "An interesting question. The temperature controls could be kinda hard to reach for him."

Tonin chirped something that sounded like a laugh, then powered up his holo-projector and showed her an old-fashioned ladder.

Kirney guffawed. "You're really something, Tonin. Not even Squeaky is this sarcastic."

Tonin hooted what sounded like a 'I-certainly-hope-so'.

She narrowed her eyes. "You're sure you're not a droidical reincarnation of Ton Phanan?"

The droid screeched in mock hurt.

"Of course I was fibbing," she retorted lightly and patted Tonin's domed head in mock comfort. "You've got something for me?"

Tonin's answering chirp was a little too nonchalant.

"Insolence doesn't become you, Squirt. And it's bad for your memory retention," she half-threatened. "Any messages?"

The droid moaned.

She sighed in dejection. He hadn't answered. She had not expected him to, but she had hoped for an answer. Even a ' _Leave me alone!_ ' would have been better than complete silence. At least she would have known not to entertain any foolish hopes anymore. It would have ended the emotional roller-coaster she was finding herself in. "Just as expected," she muttered.

Tonin squawked sharply, then emitted a cacophony of sounds way too complicated for Kirney to translate.

She leaned closer and followed the flow of characters on the datascreen, then drew back in surprise. "I am not supposed to be that  _pessimistic_ ? You're certain that Lieutenant Donos will answer?"

Tonin chattered away until Kirney held up her hand and stalled him.

"Wait a minute, short stuff. What was that about  _'I have my sources'_ ?"

The answer was strangely subdued. Suddenly the R2 unit seemed to be discomfited.

" _Tonin_ ," Kirney snarled. "I suggest you tell me what this is about or I  _will_ give you a memory scrub."

The astromech moaned.

Her face turned ashen. "You did  _what_ ?" She leaned down to read the translation running across the droid's datascreen. "You contacted Clink," she breathed and gave Tonin a wide-eyed stare. "Wait a moment. When did you contact Myn's R2? I did not see any unusual messages in the com log."

The droid warbled.

"During the battle at Selaggis? How did you ...?"

More warbles.

"You have Clink's specific communication frequency." Suddenly she felt stupid. Of course – the two droids had been hanging around together just as their respective masters had. She shot her droid a direct stare. "A tight-beamed message on Clink's specific frequency, eh? And what did your droid buddy send you?"

There was pride in Tonin's reply.

"He said Myn missed me?" A smile blossomed on her lips. "Anything else?"

Tonin had to negate.

"Too little time," she sighed. "I understand. Oh, Tonin, I could kiss you!" She sneaked her arms around the astromech and placed a kiss on his domed head.

Tonin chirped in embarrassment.

Kirney held the droid in her embrace and marveled at the irony of the universe. Here she was – hugging an astromech who might be her only friend in the galaxy, a mechanical being  _Gara Petothel_ wouldn't have deemed worthy of her noticing him. She'd grown up on Coruscant, a world that radiated the imperial preconceptions against non-human species. She'd been taught to see aliens as creatures far below human standards, as pawns to be used for the greater glory of the Empire. But if there was something that Imperials despised more than aliens then it was the droids. They were tools, expendable and replaceable.

_Gara would probably have a seizure if she were her right now_ , she thought with a mental chuckle.  _Just as well that she's dead_ .

Finally she released the droid from her embrace and stood. But not before giving his domed head a last affectionate pat. "Thank you, Tonin," she said and flopped down on the couch. For a second or two she allowed hope to flood her senses and a goofy grin crossed her features. Maybe he just needed time to think or to compose his answer. Or maybe it was simply delayed. She'd wait. But until then she had a business to run. "Any luck with your search?"

The R2 hooted and rolled towards the entertainment center. He extended his computer connector, logged in and transferred the compiled list to the holoprojector's memory banks.

Kirney reached for the remote control resting on the small table and powered up the device. "Good work. I'll check ..." The chime of the office's annunciator interrupted her.

Tonin warbled a question.

"No, I haven't made an appointment." Kirney shook her head. "See who's there and get rid of him. We're closed. If he wants to hire our services tell him to leave a message."

The droid whined.

"Well ...," Kirney drawled with a lazy grin and put her feet on the low table. "I am just getting comfortable. Besides – you're the diplomat here."

Tonin replied with a astoundingly authentic imitation of a human chuckle and headed off into the adjourning office.

Kirney brought up the list of job offers Tonin had pulled from the Message Boards and began scanning through the entries. The door muffled the sounds but she heard the distinctive creak of the office door opening, Tonin warbling and distorted murmurs. The conversation continued for several seconds, long enough for her to wonder which part of 'We're closed' the visitor didn't understand.

The door opened and the R2 unit came rolling back into the living room.

Kirney shot him a curious look. "What's taken you so long?"

Whistle.

Her eyebrows rose. "What do you mean  _'he's still there'_ ?"

Hoot.

"He refused to go? He insisted on talking to  _me_ ?" Anger welled up in her.  _Bloated corellian ego_ , she groused and brought her feet down on the ground.  _Sithspawned vacuum-sucking son of a Hutt._

Tonin chattered something and Kirney raised an eyebrow at him. There was something ...  _smug_ ... about the astromech. 

"Don't worry. I won't do permanent damage," she promised and stalked towards the office door. She slapped her palm on the control pad and the door swished open. She opened her mouth to tell him to get lost, but her jaw went down when she realized who was standing in the tiny office.

"You want me to leave? Maybe I should have made an appointment," he said.

Kirney didn't believe her eyes. This had to be a dream. This couldn't be real. "Myn," she croaked and gave him a wide-eyed stare.

*** * ***


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay. Real life interrupted.

*** * ***

"Myn?"

He tried to think of something witty to say but his mind remained blank. He'd spent considerable time trying to figure out what he'd say to her, how he was sorry for shooting at her, how relieved he felt at seeing her alive. None of that popped up in his head, though. There was a vacuum purer than deep space between his ears save one thought:

_Stars! She's beautiful._

She had always had these delicate features, her lithe and lissom build and these expressive green eyes. All of these things were still there, reminding him of the woman he'd found himself drawn to, but now the fine blond hair of Lara Notsil was replaced by the copper-toned mane of Kirney Slane. It did look good on her.  
His eyes began drifting downwards as he absorbed the rest of her. She wore a custom-made pilot's jumpsuit in black with yellow trim on her arms and legs and red seams. She'd rounded out the outfit with a short crimson jacket. The outfit reminded him all too much of what Lara Notsil had often worn during her time with Wraith Squadron but for some reason it did look much better on Kirney Slane. Maybe, he mused, it was the jumpsuit. New Republic pilot jumpsuits were mass products designed to fit a large number of different people. Measurements were averaged so the clothes would be too wide or too narrow in certain places more often than not. This black suit of hers did nothing to hide her female attributes, though, and he caught himself studying the supple curves of her body.

_Smooth thinking, flyboy_ , he thought and gave himself a resounding mental slap.  _You're here to talk and you start fantasizing over her hair and curves._

"What are you doing here, Myn?"

Her voice shook him out of his reverie. He shrugged. "You asked me to visit you."

"I did?" Disbelief and shock were still written across her face.

A corner of his mouth twisted upwards into a tiny smile. "Yes, you did. ' _Contact me, visit me – do whatever you feel you have to do. I'll accept whatever you decide.'_ Remember?"

"Oh." She lowered her gaze. "I didn't think you'd come. I thought you hated me."

"I don't hate you," he blurted out before he could catch himself.

"You don't?" Her face was radiating hope all of a sudden.

Myn sighed. "No, I don't. I did hate Gara Petothel for what she'd done, but …" He lowered his head. "Gara was an enemy, Lara was … something else. I could not hate Lara."

Kirney studied him silently. It was still the same untidy mop of black hair, still the same blue eyes which held so much pain and sadness and still the same expressionless face she remembered. But something  _was_ different.  
Myn's face was void of emotions, just as she remembered, but somehow it wasn't the same old mask she'd hated so much. He'd put on this mask whenever he didn't want other people to see what he was feeling, whenever Kell or Face had teased him about hanging out with Lara. Now the lack of emotions didn't seem forced – he just didn't seem to know what he felt. He just stood there, arms dangling along his sides, an air of indecision and helplessness about him. Kirney wanted nothing more than to take him in her arms. But she did not know if he'd tolerate that move, if he would reject the nearness. 

_To hell with decorum,_ she thought and surprised them both by taking the three steps between them and drawing him into an embrace.

Myn stiffened for an instant when she buried her face in his shoulder but the shock lasted only for a second. Then instincts took over and he sneaked his arms around her shoulders, drawing her even closer.  
They stood locked in each other's embrace for minutes, not talking, not thinking ... just feeling and drawing comfort from each other's presence. Finally, but much too soon for his peace of mind, Myn withdrew from her arms but kept his own hands on her shoulders. "Kirney. We need to talk."

She took a deep breath and willed the Fairyan Firemoths in her guts to settle. She tucked a coppery strand of hair behind her ear and gave Myn a shy smile. "I know," she said an gestured at her desk.

Myn glanced at the large windows and raised an eyebrow. "Here?"

"I know, I know." Kirney waved a hand at the small office. "But it's the largest room I have. The rest is rather cramped."

"Ok," he answered lightly and took a seat in the chair in front of the desk.

Kirney hesitated for a moment, then opened a locker. "Caf?"

Myn shook his head. "I'd prefer something else. Tea or Hot Chocolate if you have that. I'm wound up enough as it is and I don't need to be even more awake."

"Hot Chocolate?" Kirney arched an eyebrow and grinned. "Never knew you had a thing for sugary sweet drinks."

"Remember I had four cubes of sugar per pot of caf," he remarked with a smile and a wink.

"Yuck." She grimaced and made gagging noises. "That's not caf with sugar but sugar with caf."

He kept a straight face and shrugged. "That's what Kell said when he mistakenly tried mine. After he was finished gagging, that is."

She couldn't help it – she burst out laughing.

Myn was surprised by the ease with which the laughter came to her. It was a humorous laughter, heartfelt and genuine and he had heard way too little of it lately. It was a sign of hope, for a better future.

Sobering up a bit but grinning still Kirney shook her head. "Don't worry – I won't steal your cup. As I don't have Hot Chocolate some tea will have to do."

Myn nodded. "Fine with me."

"Tea it is then," she said and powered up the drink dispenser. She filled two pots with the steaming liquid and switched it off again. Then she joined Myn at her desk, dropping into her own chair.

For a moment none of them said anything, both trying to sort their thoughts. Then, suddenly, both said their respective names in unison. They looked up and shared a small smile.

"You first," they said, again in unison. The smile grew into a grin.

Myn held up one of his hands. "Ladies first."

Kirney nodded. "Before ..." She hesitated. "Before I start ... Are the Wraiths alright? I tried to find out after Selaggis, but the reports I could get were too sketchy."

Myn nodded. "They're all fine."

Kirney gave a long sigh of relief. "Thank the maker," she breathed and closed her eyes.

"But Wraith Squadron is no more."

Her eyes snapped open and she looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Myn took a sip of his tea and swallowed. "After Selaggis Starfighter Command disbanded the Squadron. Apparently we've been a bit too successful at Intelligence tasks to remain an ordinary Starfighter Squadron. The Wraiths have been recommissioned as an Intelligence Special Commando Team." He knew he was telling her secrets she had no business of knowing, but his heart told him he could trust her.

She eyed him with a curious mixture of hesitation and pity. "So you're with Intelligence now?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm not. I'm not cut for Intelligence. I ... I mean I could have gone with them. I am a sniper as you know. But ..."

Kirney's voice was gentle but knowing. "But Intel is full of betrayal, backstabbing, false alliances and false friends not to mention having to play the role of someone else and not being able to trust anyone."

Myn nodded.

"So you asked for transfer to some other X-Wing Squadron," she guessed. "Already have one?"

Suddenly Myn grinned. "Yup. You're seeing the glorious image of Rogue Seven before your eyes."

She went slack-jawed with shock. " _Rogue Squadron_ ? You've got to be joking."

He chuckled. "That's what I said to Wed ... Commander Antilles when he told me."

She shook her head. "Those are the things you're missing when you're going underground." Then the mirth in her expression disappeared completely. "I'm sorry, Myn."

Myn fidgeted, surprised at the sudden change of topic. "You've already said you're sorry."

"It's not the same." She sighed. "You know what Gara ... what  _I_ have done. I can't turn back time to right this wrong and I will have to live with it until the day I die. I  _am_ sorry for doing what I did. I am sorry for clinging to the Imperial beliefs even when I was surrounded by evidence of just how wrong they were.  
"I was brought up on Coruscant. My parents drilled the Imperial traditions and paradigms into me and I never bothered to look beyond my own nose, never bothered to challenge my own beliefs. I was the cute little kid, the obedient daughter, the talented and all-too willing student and finally the loyal Intelligence Agent. I played my roles, because I chose to stay blind and to ignore the signs hinting at what was wrong in this galaxy." Angry at herself she wiped a stray tear from her cheek.

Myn suppressed the urge to comfort her. He had the distant feeling that she had to talk about this for her own benefit, too. He knew from experience that talking to somebody about ones problems could prove to be an emotional watershed and a healing experience. But not if he was offering her his pity which she would not want. So he settled for the role of the attentive listener. "What changed?"

"I'm not sure," she admitted and rolled her shoulders to ease the tension in her back. "I've been on several assignments within the New Republic. I remember wondering about my experiences even though I cannot remember anything beyond incoherent snippets." She shrugged. "Maybe reality had finally worn out the shield of lies."

_Pretty apt a description_ , he thought to himself.  _I remember the recruitment propaganda CPD spread among us youngsters in High School. I did swallow all of it_ and _asked for a refill. However they turned out to be nothing but eloquently formulated half-truths and half-lies._

Kirney didn't seem to have noticed his steady regard. "The first  _real_ crack was the  _Implacable_ . Not just the way Trigit sacrificed so many loyal men and women but a combination of many things. Trigit was an animal – malicious, treacherous, evil to the core and full of pent-up brutality. I couldn't believe that he was an Imperial Officer, an Admiral at that. It just couldn't be.  
"You see, Myn ... I had been told more often than I care to remember that the Empire was infallible. And as such each and every representative of it was infallible, too. When he turned New Oldtown into ashes I was horrified, but I clung to my training. They had, after all, refused to obey Imperial orders. As such they were traitors and treason was punishable by death only. So Trigit couldn't have been wrong."

"But the doubts kept gnawing at you, didn't they?" He knew how that game was played all too well.

She nodded gravely. "The more time went by, the more I saw of his methods, of his character the more I wanted to throw up and never stop. The last straw was abandoning his crew to certain death. I was so angry then ..." She clenched her hands into fists.

"Oh stars," Myn breathed as the implication of her words hit him. "It was you who sent us the message about Trigit escaping."

She nodded again. "Revenge. You know my instructors at Imperial Intel would have blown a gasket or two over this. Emotions or morals don't befit an Intelligence Agent. The mission goal is your reason for living, efficiency is your god and the Emperor's wishes are all you have to care about." She gave a bark of dark laughter. "Imagine that – an Intelligence agent taking revenge on an Imperial admiral because he was disloyal and had no personal honor.   
"That's when I understood. The Empire wasn't about honor, order and law – it was about pure, brutal efficiency. It was like a giant, well-lubed construction droid making its way across the galaxy. It doesn't care if it tramples down a lot of people, it doesn't care what it's tearing down. All that matters is the plan programmed into its central computer."

"And yet you infiltrated Wraith Squadron to betray us," Myn said flatly.

Kirney winced but didn't avoid his stare. "Yes," she admitted. "It was the perfect opportunity to get friendly with Zsinj. I simply couldn't pass it up.  
"I went to the Academy and realized for the first time that a lot of stuff Imperials say about the New Republic was simply wrong. I tried to force myself to ignore it, but the doubts kept coming back, worming their way into my thoughts and dreams. I kept asking myself the same questions over and over again. When Trigit was very much fallible how had he managed to make it to Admiral? Had he obtained his rank by fraud? And if he had – how come the infallible Empire had not managed to find out about it? Or had he been promoted specifically because of his traits of character? If yes, how did that fit into the Empire's picture?  
"By the time I joined the Wraiths I had worked myself into a state of solid confusion. All the things I had seen as constants in my life had turned out to be full-blown lies and everything I had been told to hate turned out to be desirable." She chuckled sardonically. "Subconsciously I must have decided to switch sides well before I made the same choice consciously. But when Lavisar turned out to be yet another of Zsinj's petty little games I realized that Trigit couldn't have been an exception within the Imperial Officer's Corps but the rule. Zsinj was just the same and if he was, then all my preconceptions about the Empire and the Republic had to be wrong. My life had been a lie and my beliefs had been lies. That day I decided to bury Gara on Ession and become Lara." She shrugged and gulped down the rest of her tea. "It didn't work in the end, though."

Myn watched her, surprised at her willingness to talk. But there was one thing that bothered him. "And how do I fit into all of this."

She gave him a bittersweet smile. "Not at all. You weren't supposed to be interested in me. It would have been easier this way."

"Sorry," he mumbled and stared at his tea.

"Don't be. I was living a lie – another one, a better one, but still a lie. I tried to suppress myself so I could be Lara. And that is ... unhealthy." She stared out of a window.

_You have no idea just how true that is_ , he thought and took another sip of his tea.

Kirney went on but didn't look at him. "When Face found out about me it hurt. But it also freed me. I was no longer pretending to be someone else. I could finally be myself."

Myn flushed. "Sorry."

She gave him a look of mild confusion. "What for?"

"For shooting at you."

"You don't have to be sorry for that."

"Yes I have!" The intensity in his eyes surprised her. "I had been lying to everyone else, too. Including myself. I was trying to cover up the cracks in my sanity, tried to fool everyone else and myself into thinking that I was in control. Fact is I wasn't." He shook his head in disgust at himself. "I'd told myself I'd seek revenge for the death of Talon Squadron. I'd decided to throw away my life for a vendetta. Until you came along. I was beginning to forget about my vengeful side when it blew up in my face that day." Suddenly his energy was gone and his voice dropped to a whisper. "I'd suppressed myself for more than a decade. I was playing the perfect officer, the rolemodel soldier. I didn't know about living but only about handing out death. So when I heard you saying you were Gara Petothel ... I answered with the only thing I knew." He looked up at her again and his pleading gaze bored itself into her eyes. "Can you forgive me?"

She nodded smiling. "Of course I forgive you. How could I not?" Her smile grew. "You gave me a chance to start living, Myn. I'm grateful for that."

Confusion crossed his features. "How so?"

"If you hadn't shot at me I'd have ended up in a prison cell, in front of a military trial and would have been ultimately executed for treason. This way you gave me the chance to take down Zsinj ... And somehow I survived." She gestured at their surroundings. "You gave me the chance to get all of this here. You gave me the chance to start anew without having to worry about the past."

"Then why the message?" He struggled to maintain a straight face but his heart was beating faster and faster. He was sure she could hear it in the sudden silence.

She looked back at him with an expression full of disbelief. " _Why the message?_ " She shook her head still not believing what she'd heard. "Why do you think I told you I'm alive? I didn't want you to get close to me. I wanted you to stay away, to make my life easier, but somehow you wormed your way through my defenses." Tears sprung forth from her eyes and she raised her voice. "I didn't want to think about you but yet I found myself doing just that more and more often. When we were in combat I was worrying about you. When I slept I kept dreaming about you. You were haunting me, Myn Donos. I could not forget about you!"

Myn's face had turned ashen.  _She loves you_ , the tiny voice in his head said smugly.  _But you already knew that, of course. A block of ice has more empathy than you,_ Lieutenant Cardboard _!_

"Myn?"

He looked up and didn't bother to hide his own tears. "I'm sorry," he croaked and swallowed the lump in his throat.  _Now what? Can you forget? Can you forgive?_ That was a good question, indeed. Could they pretend that nothing had happened? Could he forgive her?

_I have already forgiven her_ , he reminded himself forcefully.  _But can I ignore what she's done? Can I forget about the pain she caused me?_ He gave a mental shake of the head.  _No, I can't. And I would not – not for all the money and happiness in this galaxy._ Besides, he realized, he'd fallen in love with Lara Notsil, but this was Kirney Slane sitting on the other side of the desk. He did not really know her, did he?

_But can you leave her,_ the voice in his head whispered.  _Can you just turn around and walk away?_

No, he couldn't. He knew that with an amount of certainty he hadn't felt for a long time. He could not turn his back at her just as he couldn't stop breathing forever. If he could just get up and walk away from this he wouldn't be here. But what should he do?  
And then the solution for his problem dawned on him and he was mightily embarrassed by its simplicity. He had to get to know Kirney Slane if he wanted to know if he loved her.

"I don't think we can pick off where we left off," he mumbled and kept his eyes focused on his cup.

Pain crossed her features as she gaped at him. "What are you saying?"

He met her gaze bravely. "Too much has happened. We've done too many hurtful things to another. I did fall in love with Lara, not Kirney. I don't know Kirney at all." He bit his lower lip. "But ..."

"But?"

A corner of his mouth curled upwards followed by the other. "But I think we can start over, can't we?"

"Start over?" Hope gradually replaced the pain in her gaze as she realized what he was saying.

He nodded and reached out for her hand. "Yes. Start over. This time we should do this properly. Without lame chat-up lines. Without lying to each other. What do you think?"

Relief was rolling off of her in waves. "I'd like that," she answered and smiled.

Myn nodded. "Good ..." He trailed off and his eyes widened. " _Nerfspit!_ "

Kirney was confused. "What is it?"

He covered his eyes and groaned. "This is a dream. All of this is not real. I'm still sleeping in my bed."

"What the kriff are you talking about, Myn Donos?"

He lowered his hand, looked at her in desolation and pointed at the now open door to the rooms behind the office. "Because there's an Ewok standing on the threshold wearing a jumpsuit just like yours. Since that simply _can't happen_ I must be dreaming. Logical, isn't it?"

Kirney looked at Kolot, looked back at Myn and started laughing. "Ah, you mean my copilot. I assure you he's real."

Myn glowered at her. "I'm not longer fifty percent insane, thank you."

"He is real," Kirney insisted.

"Ha ha. Remember I know all those Kettch jokes. He couldn't fly unless he's got prosthetics."

Kirney smiled sweetly. "Oh, but he has."

"You're not giving me any reason not to believe I'm dreaming," he accused.

Kirney shrugged. "You have the evidence before your eyes, but you don't trust it. Not my problem." Her smile turned competitive all of a sudden. "How about ... ?"

Myn was suspicious. "How about what?"

"How about dreaming on?"

"What do you mean?"

"Since you're insisting on being asleep and dreaming I propose making the dream worthwhile by following two time-honored traditions."

"Which happen to be?"

"First – we're taking the day off and enjoy ourselves. You know – that concept is known as 'having fun'."

"Sounds good. And the second?"

Kirney got up and pulled him to his feet. "Follow me and you'll find out."

*** * ***

 


	13. Chapter 13

*** * ***

Waking up was a painful and slow process this morning. Kirney didn't mind the slow part, she had made no appointments for this day, but she did mind the pain. She fumbled for the corner of her pillow, snatched it clumsily from beneath her head and pressed it into her face. It muted the bright light and the sounds from the outside, but it didn't do anything to silence the Ewok drummers in her head. If anything the little furry musicians stepped up their play even more.

" _Nerf droppings_ ," she groaned faintly into the pillow, then threw it off her face. She inhaled deeply and enjoyed the brief sensation of fresh oxygen flooding into her blood, before the throbbing pain behind her forehead overpowered the positive emotion.  
She sighed and opened her eyes just to squeeze them shut again instantly. The light was far too bright for her eyes and lanced into her brain with the intensity of a laser blast. Now her alternatives were clear – stay in bed and try to grab some more sleep or get up and start searching for painkillers. The choice was easy, her aching head screamed for some reprieve from the Ewok drum concert, and Kirney carefully pried one eye open, let it get used to the brightness in the room and repeated the process with the other eye. She found the ceiling she was staring at to be completely unfamiliar.

"Where am I?" Her voice was barely a whisper, a throaty croak more suited to a male Ugnaught than a human female.

She attempted to sit up, a move that was doomed right from the start, and she dropped onto her back when dizziness overwhelmed her senses. She stayed in the horizontal and counted to twenty. Then she sat up again – more slowly this time. Her world righted itself slowly, slower than she'd suspected, and the dizziness was equally slow to abate. But finally she had found her balance and began examining her surroundings.  
The room she was finding herself in was rather small and bare. The walls were colored in an antiseptic white while dark panels of fake wood formed the floor. Some rather utilitarian lockers, the bed she was sitting on and a shabby sofa across the room were all pieces of furniture she could make out. The only spot of individuality were some old large-sized recruitment posters of the Corellian Defense Forces.

Kirney looked around in confusion. The room had the aura of a teenager's realm, but it's bareness somehow contradicted that impression. Training took over and she studied the room's details more carefully. The decor was simple but a little old-fashioned. The furniture was old and grimy but not like stuff having seen heavy use lately. The dirt was more a sign of age than of wear. Maybe the room hadn't been used for many years.

The lump of blankets on the couch suddenly moved and Kirney found herself looking at Myn's sleeping face. Then she knew – this had to be Myn's old room.

She frowned. How had she ended up here? She tried to penetrate the haze in her brain, tried to remember what had happened the night before. But no memories came forth. She just couldn't remember. She pressed a palm against her right temple and groaned faintly. Thinking itself hurt.  _Emperor's black bones!_ What had she been doing last night?  
Deciding that answering that question was a futile attempt in her current state she pushed herself off the bed and stood. She had to grab the headboard for support when her legs began wobbling wildly.

"Which son of a Sith has cranked up gravity," she grumbled as she waited for her sense of balance to finish its recalibration process. She'd never felt this sick and powerless before and she vowed never to repeat whatever she'd been doing last night ever again.  _If_ she'd ever find out, that is.  
It was a full minute later when Kirney decided to try her luck. She put one foot in front of the other, leaning heavily against the array of lockers for support, and slowly made her way towards the door. Somewhere behind it salvation was waiting for her. There had to be a medkit or a medicine cabinet in the main fresher and it would surely contain the grandest triumph of human medicine – painkillers. She actually managed to reach the door without falling, put her palm on the opening mechanism and found herself facing a short but steep flight of stairs. She took a deep breath, grabbed the support rails on both sides and began her descent. She kept her pace slow, one step at a time, as she was sure a misstep would end in a fall with more than painful results.

And the Ewoks in her head kept partying incessantly, beating their drums in the wild rhythm of their native music.

Much to her own surprise she managed to reach the bottom of the stairs without tripping. She had no opportunity to bask in the glory of accomplishing such a difficult task, though.

"Ah. Our guest has risen from the dead."

Kirney whirled around and regretted the quick motion instantly. A wave of nausea washed over her and threatened to bring whatever solid food she'd had the day before back to light. She leaned heavily against a nearby wall and took a few deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling through her nose only. A few moments later her revolting innards calmed and she could focus on the woman standing on the threshold of the kitchen.

"I won't ask if you've slept well, Miss Slane. You do look worse for wear."

Kirney gaped. "How do you …"

The older woman laughed lightly. "I could say we checked your ID Card when we brought you here, but we didn't." She motioned Kirney to enter the kitchen and pointed at the table. "Sit down. You look as if you could use a painkiller. Or two."

Kirney sank onto the chair, closed her eyes and put her hands against her temples, rubbing them gently in circular motions. "I'll take two. And some water," she mumbled. When she opened her eyes again she found herself looking at two white pills and a bottle. She threw both pills into her mouth, opened the bottle and took a decent swig of the cool liquid.

"How's Myn?"

The question surprised Kirney. "Still asleep," she answered and looked at her hostess. Given the location this woman could only be Myn's mother. She was trying to place Myn's features in the face before her, but somehow she couldn't. This face had sharper features, the brown eyes spoke of great gentleness and the light brown hair was much brighter and curlier than the jet black mess of hair Myn used to sport. "You're Myn's mother?"

The merry laughter which answered surprised her. "No. Myn's my nephew." The older woman held out her hand. "I'm Zeena Donos."

Kirney took the offered hand and shook it. "So this is not Myn's childhood home?"

"Oh it is." Zeena smiled. "Myn's parents had some appointments in Coronet City and could not postpone them. But they wanted someone to be around when the two of you got up." Her smile tightened. "Myn told us, you know."

_Oh Sithspit!_ Kirney swallowed. "Everything?"

Zeena nodded. "Well, except that you're still alive. Myn's mother Jaleela told me this morning." She eyed the redhead before her curiously, surprised how pale the young woman had become all of a sudden. "Relax, Miss Slane. We won't turn you in, if you're worried about that."

Kirney let out the breath she'd been holding. "Thank you."

"No thanks required. We don't have the right to judge you and if Myn forgave you who would we be if we didn't, too?" She laughed again, this time at Kirney's incredulous stare. "You'll find out that the Donos family is a lot more liberal than other Corellians."

"Not that hard," the younger woman mumbled.

That drew another smile from Zeena. "True, but don't judge us Corellians on stereotypes. You see, most Corellians are no different from common people on other planets. We're a pretty insular society, but that comes from the underlying streak of independence. If circumstances demand it we can be pretty pragmatic and open to change. Are you familiar with the terms  _enster_ and  _ekster_ ?"

Kirney was not and said so.

"The two words are old Corellian for native and offworlder, even though those are very rough translations. For millennia Corellians only married among themselves, proper  _enster_ to  _enster_ marriages. Those who dared to marry an  _ekster_ were shunned and forced to leave the planet. To do so meant to forsake your family. You were considered dead, even more than that, even death did not end the exile. Few Corellians dared to go up against this custom but with time their number grew. And finally, after the Clone Wars, the sheer number of refugees immigrating to Corellia simply swept the custom away. There were simply too many  _eksters_ on planet to cling to it. Too many Corellian youngsters had already begun to ignore it anyway. So the society took a moment to reflect, then simply discarded it. Some die-hard extremists went berserk, but the Diktat quashed them thoroughly. Now very, very few people still believe in separating  _enster_ and  _ekster_ ."

Kirney cocked her head. "You sound as if you're speaking from your own experience."

A bittersweet smile crossed the older woman's face. "Oh, I do. I'm from Sacorria, basically a proper  _enster_ by most people's standards, but some extremists went further. They rejected any off-planet marriages, even within the Corellian system." Zeena swallowed. "My own marriage was still frowned upon by some of our neighbors. We even received some threats before the wedding, but my father-in-law told the meddlers to mind their own business. Quite thoroughly even. Then we were left alone."

"Wow." Kirney was stunned. Of course she'd known the stereotypes circulating about Corellia and its inhabitants – hotheads, not caring for odds, insular, a stubborn streak of independence as wide as the Kathol Rift – but she'd never known just how insular Corellian society had been just some decades ago.

"Well, yeah." Zeena waved a hand at her. "You see we Corellians can be pretty open-minded. When it suits us." She smiled at the younger woman. "And how could we frown upon you and my nephew when your presence is a healing experience for him?"

Kirney blinked at the sudden change of topic. "At some point I did try to kill him, remember. I'm not sure I would call that a 'healing experience'."

Zeena burst out laughing. "That's not what I meant, Miss Slane." She eyed the younger woman and Kirney could almost grasp the amusement rolling off of her in waves with her hands. "I was talking about last night."

The redhead was shifting uneasily on her chair. "What do you mean?"

"You can't remember?" Zeena grinned in a way that made Kirney want to disappear on the spot. "Nothing?"

"I only figured that the two of us have gotten pretty drunk, based on the hangover I'm having right now."

"Oh, that is certainly true." Myn's aunt turned serious. "But that's just it – Myn has never been at ease with himself. He's always kept a tight lock on his emotions, always tried to be in control of himself. This is the very first time I have ever seen him drunk."

"He was afraid of fouling up," Kirney said softly and stared at her bottle of water.

Zeena nodded. "Yes. But you managed to shake him out of that maddening calm. You managed to make him behave like a real human, not like a protocol droid. He must be really taken with you."

Kirney reddened slightly. "But I killed his squadron. My actions snuffed out eleven lives which shouldn't have ended."

"True," Zeena admitted. "But you managed to save this one life,  _his_ life. I don't think he would have survived otherwise."

Kirney raised an eyebrow. "You think so?"

"Oh, yes. He's been keeping his worries, fears or disappointments bottled up inside. He suppressed his own dreams and wishes for what he perceived his place in the universe. At some point the pressure would have become too great and he would have burst like a bottle of bad Tattooine wine."

Kirney couldn't dispute the older woman's reasoning. Myn had said so himself, hadn't he?

"Keep at him." Zeena smiled encouragingly. "You're good together."

Kirney's blush deepened. "You think so?"

"Of course. He's opened up to you in a way I would have never thought possible. He wouldn't have done that to just anyone, you know."  _Must be love_ , she added without saying it aloud.

_I know_ , Kirney thought and smiled to herself.  _Last night must have been a hell of a night._

"You really don't remember anything, do you?"

Kirney shook her head and gave Myn's aunt a suspicious glance. "Not really. The last thing I remember is dinner. After that … nothing."

Zeena grinned and went on explaining the ordeal of last night to an increasingly embarrassed Kirney.

*** * ***

 


	14. Chapter 14

*** * ***

As awareness began to seep into his senses Myn desperately tried to hang on to the dream he'd had. He had already forgotten what he'd dreamed, but it had induced a sense of well-being and that was what he wanted to preserve. Each passing second took him farther away from the land of dreams, though, and slowly reality took hold of the foggy haze between his ears. And then the pain hit him.

" _Emperor's bones_ ," he groaned and pressed his palms against his eyes. He felt horrible, much worse than after a day-long hand-to-hand session with Shalla. There was a throbbing knot of pain right behind his forehead which gave him the impression of sitting under a massive metal bell with a legion of mechanics hammering away at it with their hydrospanners.  
He didn't bother trying to sit up. He knew it would be a futile attempt and would probably end in him feeling even worse than right now. He simply dragged the blanket over his head and kept his eyes closed, allowing himself to wake up slowly.

A memory of the dream was floating past his mind's eye – him and Kirney sitting in a tiny office, empty mugs resting on a desk and an Ewok dressed in a black jumpsuit standing in the door. All of a sudden he knew again, he remembered. A tiny smile appeared on his lips. That had to be the most realistic dream he'd ever had. He'd dreamed of spending the whole day with Kirney, window-shopping, laughing, watching one of those stupid holocomedies which could fry your brain, eating some decidedly unhealthy Twi'lek food and …

Myn frowned. The evening part of his dream was blacked out with no memories attached to it. What had they done after dinner in his dream?

_Probably purging a watering-hole's alcohol reserves_ , he thought and allowed himself a lazy grin. _And now I'm hallucinating the hangover_ . _Mustn't tell Wes, though. He'd simply tell me to do it for real._

He pulled the blanket from his face and drew in a deep breath. So today was the day. He was going to meet her again, face not only the woman who'd betrayed his squadron but also the woman who had managed to worm her way through the armor he'd placed around his heart. Which part of him would prevail – the betrayed survivor or the confused man? In his dream he'd forgiven her. At least he thought so. Details of the dream were sketchy and would probably fade quickly, but he was quite sure he'd decided to hang on to her. Was that just wishful thinking? Could he really do this? Or would the tragedy of Gravan Seven always stand between them?

_You're thinking so hard that I can already see the smoke coming out of your ears_ , he heard his mothers voice in his head.

Myn sighed and rubbed his face, surprised to find a stubble at his chin. This was probably his greatest problem – he wasn't _doing_ , he was _calculating_. He'd developed the habit over the years to stand back and study a problem from all angles, trying to figure how a solution might influence other people's opinion of him. He needed to loose that, not the calculating part but his outsized considerateness on other people's opinions. He needed to learn to be selfish once a while if he was to find his human side again. And meeting Kirney Slane could only be the first stepping stone on his path back to normality.

"Better get up," he mumbled to himself and fumbled for the alarm chrono on his headboard. But all his hand encountered was the shabby armrest of his old sofa.

_Sofa?_

Myn frowned. He was pretty sure he'd fallen asleep in his bed last night. Yes, yes ... he clearly remembered watching Kirney Slane's holo and the conversation with his mother. He knew he'd closed his eyes while laying in his bed. So how had he ended up on the sofa? As hard as he tried to think he couldn't remember. And the harder he thought the worse the pulsing knot of pain behind his forehead became.  
Myn swallowed and regretted it instantly. There was a taste in his mouth that would have gagged a Neimoidian, something between rotting slashrat and charred Mynock. He had to get up. He needed something to get rid of that taste. He had to look for some painkillers. He had to ...

A knock on the door interrupted his mental monologue. Then a gruff manly voice, subdued and distorted by the closed door, called him. "You awake, son?"

"Come," he called weakly. That voice was familiar, but he couldn't place it.

He heard the door opening and closing, followed by a series of powerful steps. Myn smiled slightly, but kept his eyes closed. So his father had decided to rouse him, not his mother. "Morning," the same gruff voice greeted him. This wasn't his father.

Myn frowned and twisted on the sofa to take a look at his visitor. He pried one eye open, but all he could see was a confusing blob of colors and fluctuating forms. He consciously made the effort and concentrated on getting a clear picture. His eyes, though, had other ideas and resisted his focusing commands for quite some time. But then, after an eternity, the picture was getting clearer by the second. And when Myn finally realized who was standing in his room he nearly fell off the sofa. "Kard? Kard Venns?"

The older man chuckled and sat down on the bed on the other side of the room. "Ah. So you do remember me," he said clearly amused.

Myn threw off the blanket and swung his feet off the sofa. He pressed his palm against his forehead and grabbed the back of the furniture with his other hand as the world around him began to spin. " _Sithspit_ ," he groaned and fought the nausea rising from his bowels.

"Your first hangover?" It was more a statement than a question. And Kard seemed to be pointing out a fact rather than trying to rub it in.

"What?" Myn shook his head trying to clear the cobwebs in his mind. How could he know about him hallucinating a hangover?

Venns chuckled. "Sore throat, dry mouth, headache, nausea ... I'd say that's a prime example of a hangover."

"Thank you, _Doctor Venns_ ," Myn growled and rubbed his forehead. "How do you know about my dream?"

"Dream?" Kard frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I dreamed getting drunk last night and now I'm hallucinating the hangover," Myn explained as if speaking to a small child.

The older man laughed and the noise made Myn's aching head worse. "If that was a dream I certainly shared it."

Myn opened his eyes and stared at Venns. At least he tried, but he had to fight to keep his gaze focused on the other man. "It was a dream," he said forcefully.

Kard frowned at the younger man's tenacity. "I can go downstairs and get that girlfriend of yours."

Myn paled. "Girlfriend?"

"Yeah. Red hair, green eyes, black jumpsuit. And as boozy as you when I brought you here last night."

Donos swallowed. _Kirney!_ Venns' description matched what he'd seen in his dream. Or in his memory. Or whatever. "That was no dream?"

"Certainly not." Kard shook his head and wondered why Donos believed this to be a dream. "I can assure you that you did get drunk last night. For real."

Myn groaned again and let his head fall back into his neck. A confusing mess of thoughts kept bumping through his head.

Did meet Kirney. Got drunk. Ewok real. Promised to wipe the slate clean. Ewok real. Can't remember last night. Kirney likes me. Ewok real.

Venns was beginning to worry about Myn. "You okay, son?"

"Don't ask, Kard. Just don't ask." He wiped his face with a hand and threw an unsteady gaze at the older man. "You've got a painkiller for me? My head is about to explode."

"Catch!" Kard tossed him a white plastoid box, but Myn's eye-hand-coordination was shot and it landed squarely on his chest. Kard sighed and tossed the bottle of water he'd been carrying, but aimed at an empty spot on Myn's sofa. "Take two," he advised.

Donos didn't answer but swallowed two of the white pills and took a decent swig of water. He kept his eyes closed, waiting for the painkillers to take effect. But his curiosity was stronger than his patience – he had to know. "Why are you here, Kard?"

"Your parents have appointments in the capital. They couldn't postpone them, but they wanted familiar faces to be around when you and your girlfriend were to wake up."

"That's not what I meant." Myn shook his head. "I mean why are you _here_?"

An evil grin split the older man's face. "I brought the two of you here last night. You were in no shape to find the next 'fresher on your own, so I brought you here. I didn't fool the PSS nerfbrains at the Spaceport to have you arrested for _disorderly conduct_ just two days later."

" _Disorderly conduct_?" Myn gave Venns a wide-eyed stare. "I'm not sure I want to know."

Kard chuckled. "You can't remember? I'm not surprised."

Donos groaned. "Let's get over with this. If I'm to be embarrassed I'd like it to be over rather sooner than later."

"I don't know everything," Venns said and crossed his legs. "My youngest son got a kid last week so the men of our family went out to celebrate that occasion. A night of bar-hopping, some decent Corellian whiskey ... you know."

Suddenly Donos had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Not on Treasureship Row!"

"On Treasureship Row," Kard answered with a devilish grin of his own. "In some of the seediest establishments we could find."

Myn buried his face into his hands. "I'm _so_ dead."

"Don't be such a crybaby, Donos. You'll survive." Kard grinned harder. "It was ... well I think it was about eleven o'clock in the evening when you and that redhead came into the bar. I recognized you straight away, even though both of you were already more than a little merry."

Donos rubbed his temples. "I can't remember a thing. Last night is just a white speck on my mind."

"Then let me help you remember. There was already a party going on, a lot of young folks from the university and the academy celebrating. You and your girlfriend dived in and joined them ... Time passed and that party got wilder. Some youths had a drinking contest and ..."

Myn blanched. "I did not take part in that. Tell me I did not!"

"You did not." Kard kept his face straight, but there was a sparkle in his eyes which made Myn's fight-or-flight instincts go haywire.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Donos muttered under his breath.

Kard burst out laughing. "You _won_ it," he crowed and dissolved into peals of laughter as Donos flushed crimson. He sobered up a fraction, that silly grin still plastered across his face, and added, "Never knew you tolerate so much alcohol. And that woman of yours is no slouch, either. Did her fair share of drinking other girls under the table."

"I'm _so_ dead," Donos repeated and buried his face in his hands again. "Gimme a blaster, Kard. I want to end my shame."

"You want to hear the whole story? The best part is yet to come."

Myn sighed. "Out with it. I'm already embarrassed. Can't be much worse than that."

"The barkeeper had you two and all other lushs thrown out by midnight. Said something about ruining the carpets. I followed you. I wanted to make sure you didn't get into mischief." He let out a bark of laughter. "Which, of course, you did."

"Another bar?"

"Nope. Worse. You know _Selonia Boulevard_? That broad boulevard that runs up to the old CorSec Headquarters? There's a large fountain half a click from CorSec Plaza No.1. That's where I found you."

"Doing what?"

Kard had problems to keep his laughter under control. "There was a crowd, mostly youths again, and the two of you had climbed halfway up a sculpture of some mythical creature, singing some satirical song about establishment folly and how dumb the Diktat is. _Very_ loudly. When a PSS patrol came to investigate I snatched the two of you away and stashed you into a taxi. Then I brought you here."

Myn's face turned red from embarrassment. He groaned, let himself fall onto his back and pulled a blanket over his head. "Get me that blaster, Kard. I want to shoot myself," he mumbled.

Venns burst out laughing and hurried from the room when Donos threw a pillow at him.

*** * ***

 


	15. Chapter 15

*** * ***

An hour later he found her on the porch sitting on the small bench, nursing a mug of caf and enjoying the warmth of the spring sun.

"Hey," he called softly and sat down on the bench but left a little space between himself and her.

"Hey yourself," she returned and smiled. To his surprise she slid over and closed the distance between them. "How are you feeling?"

Myn arched an eyebrow and drawled sardonically, "Do you really need to ask?"

Kirney laughed softly and took a sip of her caf. "Not really. You look as bad as I feel."

He snorted. "At least I can say it was your fault."

"My fault?" Her eyes went wide.

"Yes. You took advantage of my conviction that I was dreaming. I would have never proposed that course of action on my own."

She stared at him in confusion, but he was not looking at her. She squinted her eyes when she spotted a telltale quiver of a muscle in his cheek. Finally he lost the battle with his blossoming smile. "Comedian," she growled and gave his shoulder a shove.

Myn laughed lightly. "Not a morning type?"

Kirney rolled her eyes. "Breakfasted a clown, didn't you?"

"I don't think I could eat any solid food at the moment," he admitted ruefully. "I'm afraid it would come out the way it had gone in right away."

Kirney sighed and tucked a strand of her coppery hair behind her ear. "Same here. I've never felt this bad ever before. And I'm not keen on repeating that anytime soon." She sat up and turned mock serious. "Let's make a deal. Whenever I propose to follow this  _'time-honored tradition'_ again you just stun me. Whenever I try to take advantage of you believing to be dreaming just stun me. OK?"

Myn shook her outstretched hand. "I think we have a deal. And it works both ways."

"Good."

He nodded and stretched his legs, raising his face to the sun. The silence that followed was comfortable and none of them was inclined to end it prematurely.

But finally Myn had to. There was this little fact he was still trying to grasp intellectually. "You know – I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the Ewok being real."

"Ah. Kolot." Her voice was knowing but dripping with amusement.

"I've seen him. I mean he was standing on the threshold, just a few meters away. And yet I have trouble believing that I'm not insane."

"I thought you were no longer half-insane," Kirney said sweetly and fluttered her eyelashes.

"I'm not. But I'm not sure I'm totally sane, either. Maybe I'm just thirty-three percent insane?"

"A reduction by seventeen percent?" She clapped her hands in mock applause. "Impressive."

Myn linked his hands on the back of his head and grinned. "How in the name of the Force did you end up with an Ewok co-pilot?"

Kirney sighed again. "He was one of the poor creatures Zsinj used as test objects. Most of them chose to travel their own paths, but Kolot just chose to stay with me."

"Yes, but an Ewok piloting a shuttle." Myn shook his head. "I feel like in 'Hidden Holocam'. I expect Janson to come around a corner with that silly grin of his any moment."

"That's exactly what I have been thinking all the time," she admitted. "When he stood on the boarding ramp, those prosthetics tucked under his arms and claimed to be able to fly that ship … I was sure I'd lost it completely." Kirney shook her head. "But he is real. He can fly that ship, probably even better than I ever could."

"So Kettch has come to life." Myn stared off into the distance and shook his head again. "Oh the possibilities, the pranks I could pull on Janson. Too bad I can't think of any right now."

"You need to upgrade your creativity processors," Kirney deadpanned.

"I'm not a droid," he protested.

"For which I thank the maker devoutly." She gave him a strange smile. "I have no use for you being … a droid."

Donos did a mental double-take. Was she flirting with him?

_Why not, you dope? You promised to start over, remember? That's what_ normal _people do,_ Lieutenant Cardboard, the voice in his head scoffed.

Myn chose to play along and gave her a hesitant glance from the corner of his eyes. "I'm not sure I want to know."

Within a second her mirth disappeared and was replaced by seriousness. "I still remember how you were before …" She didn't need to say it aloud – both knew anyway. "You've changed."

"That I have," Myn acknowledged. "I've been forced to face a few unpleasant truths."

"Such as?"

Myn leaned back against the wall and stared at the sky. "For the best part of my life I followed the path I thought my father wanted me to follow. I tried to fulfill other people's expectations. I simply forgot about figuring out what I wanted.  
"I can't remember when, but I guess I was twelve or thirteen when I decided to pursue a career in the military, because I believed my father expected it. I took the Code of Conduct and memorized it. I could recite it word by word, I still can. I never realized that the Code was not meant to be taken literally, it wasn't meant to be a holy scripture." He turned to look at her with an intensity she'd rarely seen on him. "I lived by the Code of Conduct, Kirney. I  _became_ the Code of Conduct, believing that every soldier had to do the same. When I attended the Academy I condemned the other students for not following it the way I did. I never realized that I had wrapped myself into a web of lies so tightly that it was suffocating me."

"I know," Kirney said and took his hand for a squeeze. "You never relaxed, not completely anyway. Even when we were among ourselves. There was always a certain … stiffness … You were constantly watching your back."

Myn nodded again. "Wedge was abundantly clear about me learning to relax if I wanted to stay with the military. I still find it hard to let go at times, but most of the time it's not impossible for me to do that. It's becoming easier in fact."

"I think you're doing just fine," she said.

"With you around it's rather easy," Donos answered. "That's what got me interested in you in the first place."

She didn't understand and gave him a blank look. "Huh?"

He responded with a tight smile, one she'd seen more than once. "After Gravan Seven I had toyed with the idea of leaving the military and dedicating myself to a personal vendetta against Talon Squadron's killers. The idea never left me and at some point I decided to go through with it. I planned to wait until our mission against Zsinj was over and then resign my commission.  
"The past was holding me captive, Kirney. I didn't know how to escape it. I was constantly reminded that the Talons remained unavenged, that I had failed. I did not see much sense in staying with Wraith Squadron where I would be distracted from hunting down my enemies. But then you came along …" He took a deep breath. "I was intrigued. There was this woman who had lost her family, her home and her past, a woman who had been through a personal hell which seemed to have been so much worse than my own. And yet she didn't seem to be haunted by her ordeal. She didn't seem to miss her past, didn't seem to mourn the passing of family and friends. I couldn't understand it, but I wanted to learn how she was doing it. And deep down inside I wanted to be like that, too. I didn't want to go berserk, didn't want to cause more bloodshed." He swallowed the lump in his throat. "I guess I only thought about hunting the murderers of my squad because I didn't seem to have alternatives left."

"And now you do have alternatives?" She kept her voice casual but her heartbeat had sped up at his words.

"Sure I do." He smiled at her. "But as it is my path is already laid out before me. A part of it anyway."

"Rogue Squadron?"

He nodded. "I owe Wedge. Not necessarily for my career, but more for setting my head straight on a few matters. He's risked his own job to cover my failures and I have to repay him for that." He shrugged. "Or maybe I need to prove it to myself. Anyway, Zsinj is still out there and I have a very special present for him, courtesy of Krupx Munitions."

Kirney grinned. She understood his motivation very well, but she couldn't help the rising worry, the doubts gnawing at her innards. He would be away from her for a long time and the New Republic was chronically tightfisted concerning leave of absence. Where would this path lead them? Would it work out? Did he even remember his promise to start over?

"Stop it," he ordered mock sternly.

She covered her sudden discomfit and feigned confusion. "Stop what?"

"I know you," he told her. "You were wondering if I remembered my promise to start over."

Kirney averted her gaze. How could he have known?

Myn reached out and gently raised her chin, forcing her to look at him. "I know you. It was rather obvious, even to me." He stroked her cheek and smiled. "You may be good at acting, but I have become rather adept at discerning the look in your eyes."

Kirney's blush deepened and she averted her eyes once again. "You have to admit it was a perfectly justifiable question," she muttered.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't care about you. I would have erased the message and forgotten about it," Myn said. "I know very well that I promised to start over. I don't say things I don't mean."

"I guess so."

"I do," he insisted. "Besides," he drawled and put a goofy grin on his face, "I still have seventeen days before I've got to get back to Coruscant. I hope to spend some of these with you."

Kirney arched an eyebrow, her unease forgotten. "Some of them?"

"You've got a business to run," he reminded her.

"True," she admitted. "But I haven't made any appointments, yet."

Myn cocked his head. "Ah, but can you afford to stay idle for more than two weeks?"

Kirney remembered the fueling bill and grimaced. "Not really."

"See? You need some time to get your Shuttle business going and I want to check out some of my old haunts, meet up with some old friends of mine. That kind of stuff."

She sighed. "You're insufferable at times."

He grinned. "I know. Part of my charm?"

"Debatable."

"Want me to prove that?" He shot her a teasing glance.

"Oooh. Now I'm intrigued," she cooed mockingly.

He looked directly into her eyes. "Well, I do remember promising to do things the traditional way. Which obligates me to ask you for a date."

"You do?" Her words came out a little breathlessly.

"I do," he affirmed and wondered if her eyes had always been this green. "How about dinner? A real one in a fancy restaurant?"

"Nothing Twi'lek, I hope," Kirney teased back.

"Nope. I was thinking about a certain Corellian restaurant I know."

She arched an eyebrow. "Domesticated already?"

"Hardly." He shrugged. "I just know what I like."

"Oh really?" She cocked her head and let him spot the spark in her eyes. "Okay, convince me."

He smiled wryly. "Oh, and how do you think I could accomplish such a difficult task?"

Kirney shrugged. "I trust in your ability to improvise. You'll think of something."

"Hmmmm ..." Myn pretended to think. "How about ..." He reached out and caught her chin, tilted her face upwards and leaned in close. " _This?_ " With that he covered her lips with his. He kept the kiss innocent and soft, not wanting to go like a Ronto at the proverbial gate. After a few seconds he withdrew and smiled at her. "Convinced?"

Kirney was determined not to show him just how much that kiss had affected her. "Not quite, yet," she teased and smiled at his surprised expression. "I guess you'll have to go on trying to convince me."

Myn drew himself up to his full height and gave her a predatory smile. "I think that can be arranged." Then he kissed her again.

*** * ***

 


	16. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Epilogue was written long before Aaron Allston released his (sadly last) X-Wing book "Mercy Kill" ... and also before I tossed anything after 'Survivor's Quest' out of my personal headcanon. As such it is outdated and later works will reflect a different chain of events, but I did not want to replace it. Keep this in mind when reading.

*** * ***

_32 years later_   


Outwardly Jedi Knight Tyria Sarkin-Tainer appeared to be as calm and composed as befitted a Knight of her age and experience. Inwardly, though, she was concentrating hard on keeping her agitation from showing on her face. And she had to consciously suppress the urge to fidget.  
The news about the failed missions on Corellia had spread faster among the Jedi than Bothan Redrash did among an all-Bothan crew of some secluded space station. Details were sketchy, yet, but most Jedi were already aware of the traps which had been waiting for the Jedi teams. But while most Jedi were already discussing how the Corellians could have received such detailed information about the missions, Tyria was worried for one individual only.

While she was already aware of her son being alive and well, both through the Force bond she shared with him and the preliminary reports Jaina Solo had sent, her motherly instincts drove her to be here on the tarmac. She needed to make sure that her son was really fine, had to see him with her own eyes and touch him with her own hands. It was pointless, it was superflous and completely corny but she couldn't help it.  
Tyria shook her head. She should get a grip on herself. After all Doran was a grown man of twenty-eight years and not a toddler barely out of the cradle.

An unbidden memory appeared in front of her mind's eye, a five-year-old Doran preparing for his very first shockball match. He'd looked clumsy in his thick protective gear, like a young wanderer crab from Toprawa who'd chosen too large a shell for himself.

"Clear landing pad Osk-Cisk-Sixteen for incoming shuttle. I repeat: Clear landing pad Osk-Cisk-Sixteen for incoming shuttle."

The voice blaring from a speaker drew Tyria out of her reverie. She began scanning the blue cloth of the sky for an approaching ship. Sure enough a group of distant dots dropped beneath the bottom-layer of the ever-moving speeder traffic in the skylanes and headed for the military landing field which the Jedi had been given by the Galactic Alliance for their own use. The dots separated, a single one dropped lower while the rest remained in a tight formation. Five seconds later the X-Wings roared past and were out of sight within an instant. The shuttle, she immediately recognized it as an old but classic  _Lambda_ -class vessel, raised its wings and dropped his landing gear. The ship slowed gracefully, rested on the air cushion created by the repulsor lifts and then gently touched down on the duracrete surface of the landing pad. But she didn't expect anything else from Jaina Solo who was certainly one of the best pilots the Jedi Order had.

"Something's bothering you, Jedi Sarkin-Tainer?"

Tyria glanced at the white-haired woman who'd joined her at the edge of the landing pad. Her face gave nothing away, but Tyria could feel her guarded amusement. "Tionne," she said and gave her a small bow. "And it's Tyria."

"Alright." Tionne laughed lightly. "He is fine. You know that."

"I do," Tyria agreed. "But he's my son and worries are hardwired into a mother's genome. I can't escape them."

"I'm sure Doran appreciates it."

"I know." Tyria sighed in vexation. "But sometimes I do have problems discerning the grown man Doran is now from the tiny piece of human he was at his birth, the sometimes clumsy toddler or the rebellious teenager I've known. Intellectually I know he's way beyond the age of needing protection, but ..."

Tionne patted her arm. "That's natural. He will always be your little boy in some way or another. That is the way parents tend to view their children." Her smile grew into a grin. "But as I understand it he will always be a little boy in some regards. Namely the pranks he used to play ... and still does."

Doran's mother chuckled lightly. "True enough. When I look at his father I still see the childish prankster I've fallen in love with all those years ago. He hasn't changed one bit. And I wouldn't have it any other way."

Tionne smiled. "I know a few Jedi who would give a lot for him to change just one little bit. I seem to remember a rather recent incident involving a bucket of ramjet lube …"

Tyria held up her hand and silenced the older Jedi. "Whatever it is – I don't want to know about it."

A vicious hiss of steam from the Shuttle interrupted the conversation and returned the two Jedi's attention to the ship parking in front of them. The boarding ramp lowered slowly accompanied by groans of the hydraulic system and more steam coming out of the cooling vents. First to emerge were Jaina Solo and Zekk and he was obviously not happy about something. He threw Jaina a murderous scowl and furiously rubbed his hips.

Jaina ignored him and gave the approaching Jedi a small bow of respect. "Tionne, Tyria."

"Welcome back, Jaina," Tionne answered and smiled. "Good to see you in one piece and unharmed."

"I'm not unharmed," Zekk grumbled and fired another glare at his Jedi partner. "Thanks to her."

"Too bad Bacta can't cure vices of personality," Jaina sighed. "Don't be such a crybaby."

Zekk glared again and pointed at her. "Next time you can sit in a seat this small for a few hours. Then we will see who's a crybaby,  _Jedi Solo_ ."

"Nobody forced you to sit there. Why did you have to take the kid's seat at all? I could have flown all by myself quite easily."

Zekk snorted. "Sure.  _A kid's seat_ ," he mocked. "At the co-pilot's station? Or do you know of a human kid that shed's fur?"

Tyria blinked. "Fur? What fur?"

"Not Bothan fur," a new voice from behind Jaina and Zekk called. "Jusht to make zhat clear."

Tionne frowned at the Bothan. "Are you alright, Kolir?"

The Bothan shook her head. "Broken jaw. Noshing Bacta can't fixsh."

Tyria craned her neck and studied the intricate painting on the ship's flanks. "Interesting choice of an escape craft," she said and raised an eyebrow at Jaina. "Hardly inconspicuous, though."

The brunette Jedi shrugged. "Not my fault. Thann here obtained it."

"In our situation I figured that spaceworthiness ranks higher than a pleasant appearance," the Falleen Jedi retorted with utmost dignity. "The ship was fueled and ready for take-off. As such it fulfilled our primary needs."

"And you got to play with thoshe pheromonesh again," Kolir muttered. "And if I ever find out that you're getting datesh thish way …"

"Will you two leave it!" Tahiri descended the ramp and glowered at the Falleen and the Bothan. "You never stopped bickering ever since we've left Corellia."

"It's not my fault that Jedi Hu'lya is jealous of my efficiency," Thann said and shrugged.

Kolir's death-glare would have melted a Star Destroyer. "You've got an innate deshire for a Bacta dunk? I can arrange it for you. Eashily."

"Children!" Tionne gave the group a small glare. "This is not an appropriate behavior for Jedi." She pointed at Kolir. "You're going straight to the Medcenter for Bacta treatment. For the rest of you there's a debriefing scheduled in an hour. Time enough to freshen up and get something to eat."

"Yes, Master Solusar." Jaina bowed and dragged a still glowering Zekk towards the Jedi complex.

The rest of the Jedi team, minus Doran who was waiting patiently at the bottom of the boarding ramp, followed Tionne's order, bickering all the way and disappeared into the towering building.

The white-haired woman rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Force grant me strength. They make teaching youngling classes look like a vacation at times."

Tyria gave her a small smile. "I've got two of those in the family. Married one and gave birth to the other."

Doran glowered. "I'm not that bad."

His mother shot him a wry look. "You are your father's son, Doran. You can't escape your genes."

Doran frowned. "Aren't you supposed to be on my side?"

"I've had to put up with your antics for nearly three decades. I know you and that scoundrel inside your head. You don't fool me at all."

Tionne smiled broadly. "I'll leave you two alone. There are some issues which require my attention, anyway." She nodded at Doran. "Debriefing in an hour, remember."

"Yes, Master." Doran bowed and watched the Jedi Master retreating into the building.

When she was out of sight Tyria embraced her son tightly. "I was worried sick. When they told us the news I feared the worst."

Her son had inherited his father's height and physique and could lift her from the floor easily. "I'm really fine, Mom. It takes more than a few overzealous CorSec folks and some rusty droids to take me down." Then he put her down again.

She withdrew from the embrace and wiped a stray tear from her cheek. "Sorry," she mumbled and gave him an embarrassed smile. "Old habits die hard, I guess."

Her son grinned. "Not a problem. Besides …" Doran looked around to make sure they were really alone and twisted his face into a devilish grin. "There's something I wanted to show you. It's even better that the others aren't here anymore."

She knew that look. His father sported it every time he'd successfully set up one of his pranks. "What are you up to, Doran Tainer?"

He grabbed her hand and dragged her up the boarding ramp and into the Shuttle. "There's something I found in a locker. I'm sure you'll appreciate it," he said and grinned.

Tyria pulled her hand away and crossed her arms. "If this is one of your pranks I don't want any part in it. You hear me?"

Doran merely smiled and opened a locker which had been inserted into the bulkhead of the ship itself. Then he pulled out a folded black piece of clothing, unfolded it and held it out for her to watch.

Tyria raised an eyebrow. "A children's jumpsuit. So?"

Her son shook his head. "That's not a kid's jumpsuit, Mom. Look at the arms and legs. They're way too short for a kid of that age." The devilish grin reappeared on his face. "I'd say that jumpsuit should fit  _Lieutenant Kettch_ perfectly."

"Oh no!" His mother's eyes went wide. "Don't tell me you still have that life-sized Ewok doll."

"Oh, but I do," he answered cockily. "You don't really think I'd get rid of such a hero as Lieutenant Kettch, do you?"

She shook her head. "Thought – no. Hoped – yes." Just then she remembered a piece of the conversation with Jaina and Zekk. "By the way what was that about a tiny seat with fur on it?"

Doran pointed at the cockpit. "The co-pilot's seat is very small and narrow, too small for most creatures." He rubbed his chin and frowned as a new thought crossed his mind. "It's like …" He shook his head. "No, that's nonsense. That can't be."

"What can't be?"

"That seat is about right for a fully grown Ewok."

Tyria gave him a lopsided grin. "Yeah, sure."

He shrugged. "See for yourself."

Tyria shook her head and approached the door separating the passenger's compartment from the cockpit. As such the ship had been massively modified. Where normal  _Lambda_ -class shuttles had a decent space for passengers or cargo this one had three cabin compartments, one large and two of a smaller size, leaving only a little room for a tiny galley, a table and a cramped settee.  
She stopped in mid-stride and took a look around. This was no ordinary charter shuttle but more like the mount of a four-person-family. She looked at the large cabin, then the other two.

_The parents' and the kids' bedrooms_ , she thought.  _So that jumpsuit really belongs to one of the kids._

Tyria shook her head and resumed walking. As she approached the passageway to the cockpit she slapped her palm on the opening mechanism and the door silently disappeared in the bulkhead to her left. She entered the cockpit and studied the seating arrangement. The co-pilot's seat was really tiny, too small to be of use for grown humans or similar species. And there was fur on it, all right.  
Tyria sighed and turned to leave when a picture appeared in front of her mind's eye. She saw an Ewok with dark-brown fur sitting in the tiny seat. He wore the black jumpsuit her son had shown her and had metal extensions attached to his arms and legs. She shook her head trying to clear her mind, but the picture refused to disappear. She took a deep breath and drew on the Force to push the impossible thought back into the dark depths it had emerged from. It was impossible, unthinkable. Her mind was just playing tricks on her.

She took a step towards the exit, but hesitated when she felt a whisper of the Force.

She turned around and let her gaze sweep across the gray surfaces, the consoles and displays. The whisper returned, no longer lighter than the touch of a Fireflare's wing but growing into a nearly discernible rumble. There was something in here for her to find.

_Alright_ , she thought and took a deep breath.  _Let's see what's so important in here._

She closed her eyes and reached out with the Force. She wasn't one for visions and they usually came only in deep meditation, remained blurry and incomplete. But this time it appeared with the ease of someone switching on a holoprojector. She saw the Ewok again, still sitting in his seat and using his prosthetics to manipulate the console in front of him. A human hand – a female hand - appeared at the edge of her field of vision, flipped a switch and disappeared from sight again. Her vision rocked slightly as if the ship had touched down and the Ewok busied himself – Tyria had no idea how she knew he was male, but she was convinced of it. – with flipping switches or punching buttons. Lights started to flicker and died down one by one. Finally the consoles went dark. Then the Ewok unhooked his crash-webbing and began snapping off his prosthetics before he extricated himself from the seat. A panel to his right opened revealing a small rack and the Ewok put the metal extensions into the rack before closing the panel again.

Tyria jerked back to reality. She'd never experienced a vision this clear. It reminded her of the results certain high-resolution spycams produced. She'd used those a few times during her service with NRI.

"Mom? Are you okay?"

She waved her son's concern away. "I'm fine."

He approached the still open passageway between cockpit and passenger compartment. And he was obviously not placated. "Sure?"

She smiled and nodded. "I just had a small vision. Nothing important."

Doran shrugged but kept leaning against the bulkhead. "Anything interesting?"

She finally lost the battle with her grin. "Nope. Just Lieutenant Kettch."

Doran chuckled and shook his head. He'd grown up with stuffed Ewoks, Ewok pranks and the tales of the mighty Lieutenant Kettch. It had become a private joke among his family.

His mother chuckled, too, but approached the panel the Ewok in her vision had opened. She knew it was pointless, but she needed certainty. She knew she would not find anything behind that … She gasped.

"Mom?" Now Doran was really concerned. "You sure you're alright?"

Tyria turned to look at her son and gave him a disbelieving look. "Tell me those are not what I think they are," she said breathlessly and pointed at the open panel.

Her son frowned and peered into the cramped compartment. When his brain realized what he was seeing he jerked back and returned his mother's disbelieving stare with one of his own. "I … I …," he stammered. "I don't believe this."

Tyria pried one of the metal extensions out of its fitting and studied it intensively. It was worn and dirty, had scratches everywhere. As if it had seen heavy use for years.

"I don't know how they did it," her son remarked as he was studying the object in her hands, too.

"Who?"

"Dad. Loran. Janson." Doran shrugged. "That's gotta be some prank of them. I mean, that can't be real. Can it?"

Tyria shrugged. "I don't know."  _Kettch real? Force preserve my sanity._

"But how could they? They couldn't have known about our mission. They couldn't have known about us … obtaining this ship. It wasn't planned at all." Doran still couldn't get over it.

"I don't know, Doran. But I guess we should find out, shouldn't we?"

"How?"

His mother jerked her head at the bulkhead on the other side of the cockpit. "There's gotta be some datapad with the ship's registration. Maybe we get an idea who our Kettch here is."

Doran swallowed. "I'm almost afraid to find out. That would take the punchline out of this joke."

"True," his mother admitted. Then she glanced at her wrist chrono. "Go and take a shower. You've got a debriefing in a while."

Doran leaned in and placed a kiss on her cheek. "See you then, Mom." Then he withdrew from the cockpit.

Tyria stowed the prosthetic extension in its rack again, crossed to the other side of the cockpit and snatched a permanent-memory datapad from a slot in the bulkhead next to the captain's station. Then she followed him.

 

In spite of her gnawing curiosity her duties kept her busy for the best part of the next two hours. Due to her Intelligence training and experience she'd been temporarily assigned to the teaching corps and assisted other Jedi in teaching the finer arts of the Intelligence business.  
She did not like that task as it reminded her of the more unpleasant facets of her service with Wraith Squadron. She'd seen things, and done things, that still made her skin crawl and welled up revulsion in her stomach. She'd been all too happy to leave NRI in favor of her own Jedi training, even if it had meant to leave her friends and her husband behind for quite some time. But she'd spent a lot of time thinking about this step and at some point she hadn't been able to take it anymore. Intelligence had worn her out.

She locked the door of her temporary quarters and gave a sigh of relief. She had never voiced her displeasure and she was quite sure nobody had managed to spot her unease, but those training sessions always took a lout out of her. The time would come when she'd have to tell the Masters that she needed a break from them. But not now. Not that soon.

Tyria wandered into her small kitchen and switched on the caf distiller. She had the distinctive feeling that this would be a long evening and some caf would certainly help her fight the rising fatigue. The bulky device gurgled and hissed – which reminded her to give the maintenance droid a call and have it clean the distiller – but after a few minutes it had produced a can of the hot, black and decidedly strong fluid. She filled her favorite mug, added milk and sugar and made her way back into the living room. Her destination was the computer console.

_Time for some research_ , she decided.

The datapad in her pocket had grown heavier since she'd put it in there. And when she pulled it out of its temporary prison it seemed to ...  _throb_ ... She shook her head. Her senses were playing tricks on her. She was probably still stressed out from the training session.  
Tyria switched it on and was presented by an utterly standard greeting. The old Empire had passed a law which dictated that every single privately owned ship had to carry a permanent-memory datapad containing all information on the ship and its owners along. The Imperials had hoped to use them in their struggle against all opposing elements within Palpatine's new realm, but that had proved to be a vain hope. Forging a ship's documents was even easier than faking a ship's ID or tuning its engine signature. The New Republic had continued to use that rule as had the Galactic Alliance, but nowadays the thorough documentation was more of a tradition than a galaxy-wide regulation.

She had to scroll through pages after pages full of wordings of law, reminders to adhere to the principles of privacy and other pointless drivel. But finally she managed to worm her way into the main menu and went looking for the owner details. She hit the button and took a sip of her caf. Just then she nearly spat the liquid across the holoprojector when drops of it took the wrong passageway in her throat. Tyria coughed heavily enough that tears formed in her eyes and forced the offending fluid out of her windpipe. Then she stared in surprise at the data in front of her eyes.

The ship was registered at Coronet City and was owned by a small passenger and freight distribution company -  _DonoSlane Excursions_ . A part of that name itself was familiar. She'd known a Myn Donos many, many years ago. He'd been one of Wraith Squadron's founding members but had left the unit for Rogue Squadron when the Wraiths had been transferred to Intelligence. A few years later he'd resigned his commission and had disappeared.  
And really – a Myn Donos was listed as co-owner of the shuttle along with a Kirney Slane-Donos, apparently his wife. Tyria smiled wryly.

What a coincidence. First there's something that cannot be real aboard the shuttle and now there's a familiar name in its registration who knows about Kettch.

But of course she could be reading all of this the wrong way. Maybe there were other men with that name – although she'd never heard of another Myn in her whole life. But there was a chance to verify her hunch. If the datapad was set up strictly by the rules, then there would be holos of the registered owners ...

Tyria whistled silently. Now  _that_ was interesting. There were no holographs of the owners, just static noise. If that was the Myn Donos she was thinking about, why would he have had his holo removed from such an innocent document? And that of his wife.  
She mulled over this. Donos had disappeared completely after resigning his commission almost exactly thirty years ago. He'd never contacted any of his old comrades afterwards. He hadn't left behind a way to get in touch with him, either. He'd vanished just as if he'd never existed at all. If he weren't listed in Rogue Squadron's annals she might believe him to have been a product of her own imagination. What had driven him to this step? Granted, he'd been a loner even after conquering his inner demons, always part of the group but never in its center. But disappearing this completely ... 

_There's more to that than any of us ever suspected_ , she mused and took another sip of her caf.  _He was never one to act rash. He was one for careful planning and consideration. He must have had a very good reason._

When Han Solo's Task Force had returned to Coruscant after their victory at Selaggis all personnel had been given the rather opulent amount of three weeks of leave. In fact Donos had been the first to disappear. They'd barely touched down, and if she remembered the incident correctly Donos had just had enough time to move his personal belongings to his new quarters, when he'd finalized the paperwork and had headed off to some unknown location.  
The next time she'd seen him had been many months later, when the Wraiths had been assigned as advanced scouting party to the operations against Prince-Admiral Delak Krennel. Donos had been a different man by then, not the distant and brooding loner she'd known before. Then she'd attributed his newfound ease with himself to the healing properties of time, but now she wasn't so sure anymore.

" _If_ that is the Myn Donos I'm thinking about at all," she sighed. Without a visual confirmation her whole musings might be nothing more than elaborately sculpted steam. She stiffened.  _Visual confirmation._

She put the datapad aside and switched on the computer console. Due to her temporary teaching job she'd been granted access to the Galactic Alliance's extensive bureaucratic network and even a few Intelligence databases. She logged in, called up the database listing all Galactic Alliance citizens and filled the search mask with the information. Corellia might be a rebellious member at the moment, but bureaucrats were the same on every planet in this galaxy. These creatures could not stand data sets not kept in a meticulous shape. They would rather breathe the hard vacuum of deep space than allow for sloppy data management.

#### MATCH FOUND. OPEN FILE(S)? YES / NO

She had the computer open the file and studied its contents. It was the correct Myn Donos, alright. She looked at the service record listed: Talon Squadron, Wraith Squadron, Rogue Squadron. He'd returned to Corellia, his home planet, and had lived without attracting attention ever since.  _Well, well, well ..._

But there was one big surprise waiting for Tyria in that file, too. When she entered the command to display the person's holo she was greeted by the very same static noise she'd seen in the ship's registration files. Her mouth formed a wordless 'O' of surprise. Manipulating the ship's registration files might be easy enough for even the greenest of rookies, but the citizen's database of a government was a completely different category. These databases were guarded more closely than most planets did watch their financial reserves. To be able to invade such a computer system without raising alarms, manipulate files without letting the keepers of the data know about it and withdraw just as silently you had to be one of the galaxy's top slicers. Few of those were not working for governmental organizations and those who did not were excessively expensive to hire. So why had Myn Donos hired one to cover his tracks? And where had he gotten the money for that operation?

Tyria put her elbows on the console and buried her face in her hands. She could already feel a headache forming behind her forehead. And it was going to be a bad one. She had various pieces of the puzzle – the jumpsuit, the metal prosthetics, the ship's registration and the manipulated personal file. But they did not fit. They did not form a picture but an erratic blob of shapes and colors. Where was the key to unlock this mystery?

She closed the database and logged out, but let the projector on standby. She had hit a dead end. There were more questions than answers and this path would not lead to any other revelations. Suddenly she remembered one of her – probably long gone – tutors from Airen Cracken's Staff.

If you cannot gather any more information the conventional way go to the source.

That had been an operational procedure reserved for emergencies or completely failed operations. If you wanted to know as much as possible about an individual it was always better not to alert him or her of your interest. To resort to this straightforward approach you had to be desperate.

Tyria snarled, exasperated at herself. She had established the identity of the ship's owner, a former squadmate and friend, and here she was – contemplating information gathering strategies as if going on another Intelligence mission. She  _really_ had to get out of these Intel courses very soon.

"So if the Noghri don't come to Wayland, Wayland comes to the Noghri," she muttered and powered up the holocom. She picked a number and waited.

"Jedi Sarkin-Tainer. That is a surprise," the man's holo said.

Tyria bowed slightly. "Master Katarn. Forgive me for being blunt, but I need an authorization for a HoloNet call to Corellia. I know the Alliance is monitoring those. Or worse." She frowned slightly. Was this really what she'd fought for all her life? "But with the authorization of a member of the Jedi Council ..."

Katarn was puzzled.  "May I ask for your reasons for this rather unusual request?"

She smiled. "The ship the Jedi teams used to escape Corellia turned out to belong to an old friend of mine. He was a member of Wraith and Rogue Squadron before he resigned his commission. I want to assure him that the ship will be returned in prime condition once the situation between the Alliance and Corellia has been sorted out."

"I see." Katarn's holo grinned.  "So you're killing two Mynocks with one blasterbolt, aren't you?"

"From a certain point of view ... Yes."

Katarn laughed lightly and punched a few buttons. A light flickered on Tyria's console and indicated the receipt of a data package.  _"I've authorized your request and transmitted a one-time access code for the HoloNet. Use it and the Alliance will leave you alone."_

Tyria bowed again. "Thank you, Master Katarn. And please excuse the interruption."

Katarn's holo nodded and winked out.

Tyria took a deep breath and let it out slowly. That had been surprisingly easy. Given the disasters which had befallen the Jedi operations on Corellia she hadn't expected to get clearance.  _All the better_ , she thought and brought up the owner's details of the shuttle. And really – there was a HoloNet address listed. She held the datapad in her left hand, opened the file she'd received from Katarn and dialed the number listed in the registration datapad.

Her call was answered almost instantly, but the holo that popped up surprised her. The first thing she saw was the back of a woman with coppery hair, tightly woven into a single long braid. She was facing the room behind her, obviously still engaged in talking to another individual. She gave Tyria a quick glance over her shoulder and said,  _"One moment, please. I'll be with you right away."_

Tyria hadn't gotten more than a short glance at her profile, but that voice ... She sat up straighter in her chair.  _That voice is familiar_ , she realized. But then the holo drew her attention back. And she needed all of her willpower to keep her jaw from disconnecting from its sockets.

Behind the redheaded woman the holo showed a generously spaced office with several desks and computer terminals. Off to the right she could make out a spacious settee and a low table, obviously intended for the more important business negotiations. But the room was far less interesting than the other individual which had stepped into the holocam's recording range.  
It was an Ewok. The same Ewok she'd seen in her vision aboard the shuttle. The furry creature wore a jumpsuit whose dark gray had almost completely given way to various stains of red, black or brown. She knew only a few substances could produce that particular color pattern - starship lube, fuel and coolant fluid. He – Again Tyria had no idea how she knew it, but she was absolutely certain that that Ewok was male. – was waiting patiently for the redhead to finish her instructions, wiping his paws on a dirty old rag.

The other woman's voice penetrated Tyria's stupor, but her words were directed at the Ewok.  _"The issue with the loading mechanism is sorted out?"_

_"Yes,"_ the Ewok's sing-song voice answered in almost clear basic.  _"New hydraulic set installed and tested. Problems gone."_

_"Very good, Kolot. Could you find Myn and remind him of the time?"_ The woman threw a glance at her wrist chrono.  _"Alina should be finished in half an hour. He promised to pick her up."_

The Ewok nodded.  _"Kolot will do."_ Then he headed off and disappeared from the holo.

Tyria remained motionless in her chair, far too stupefied to form a coherent sentence even in her own thoughts.

But that stupefaction was nothing compared to the one that followed. The redhead turned around in her seat, facing her for the first time, and gave her a business smile.  _"I beg your pardon. Thanks for calling ..."_ She trailed off and narrowed her eyes.

Tyria could feel her penetrating gaze, but she was occupied studying the face in front of her.  _I know her_ , she thought. And yes, there was a familiarity about that other woman. She knew she'd seen her before, had heard her voice before. But she couldn't remember where and when.

Suddenly the redhead's expression changed and her eyes widened considerably. Tyria saw the spark of recognition in those green orbs.  _"Tyria?"_

And  _then_ the credit dropped. As did Tyria's jaw. But that couldn't be ... That woman was dead, had been dead for three long decades. And suddenly it made sense ... The way Myn Donos had disappeared. The total lack of contact. The manipulated files. " _Stars of Alderaan_ ," she breathed and gave the redhead a wide-eyed stare of surprise. "Lara?"

 

_**The End ...** _

 


End file.
